


SIMULACRUM

by oracular_vernacular



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Androids, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Corporate Espionage, Cybernetics, Dystopia, Genetic Engineering, Hacking, Healthy Relationships, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, OCs for days - Freeform, Polyamory, Post-Capitalist Hellscape, Psionics, Smuggling, Smut, Unhealthy Relationships, Unnecessarily Ambitious, Virtual Reality, everyone has issues in this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 56,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23183080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oracular_vernacular/pseuds/oracular_vernacular
Summary: Kylo Ren was to be the key to First Order, LLC's dominion over the global economy in the ruins of Empire Corps. The psionic abilities of his heritage grow slowly less effective as technology embeds itself into human life and bodies. But for now he is still the most powerful and ruthless of Snoke's Requisitions Specialists, and all who stand in his company's way will be neutralized.The Jedi are few and far between, no longer trusted by the common folk. Psions learn to keep their abilities hidden to survive. Rey is one such creature. She finds herself enmeshed in a network of crypto-anarchists who call themselves the Resistance, doing battle both digital and corporeal against the rising tide. They scoop up every dubious smuggler, renegade techie, and bankrupt business owner who'll join them. But their efforts have been flagging, and Snoke seems to foresee their every move.Deep under the outer rim city of Jakku, the Resistance is building the perfect weapon. It is called the Simulacrum, and its only purpose is to eliminate Kylo Ren.AN 7/21/20: this fic is currently on HAITUS until i can get a little more time to write it <3
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s), Leia Organa/Han Solo, Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Rey/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 31





	1. transcript log 01.00

>//server/LAN/system/library/target/kylo/data/history/file:oSSA09xABY.vid

>recorded [date redacted], 01.00 Leia Organa

>transcribed by Ph|2/\k+a|_

>buffering…

>key:

>password accepted

>notes: This is the first session of our recordings for the target. Name: Kylo Ren, formerly Ben Solo. Here is where you will begin to understand him, and how he thinks. His mother is going to talk a bit about him. Organa is an imposing woman despite her diminutive stature. But she is here to speak about her son. I wish I could write poetry. Perhaps then I could convey the look on her face as this recording session begins. You’ll know it by your optics, though, so don’t worry. She continues to experience grief. We all do, really.

>transcription begins

>When he was young, Ben was pretty happy. He wanted to be just like his dad. 

>she laughs

>she pauses

>Wanted to fly. He was a pretty good pilot by the time he left. My brother taught him everything else. I maintain that he’s smart in spite of me, not ‘cuz of me. Luke took him to the lab, they worked hard on that weapon of his. I still dunno what to say about the Force and all the psionic stuff, but. People are gonna tell you it’s not real. It is. Ben always had it. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is. But he had it. 

>she sighs

>He relied on it a lot. More than his instinct, I reckon, which is why he never developed good instincts, maybe. That, and we didn’t teach him well enough. His skill with the tech was… okay. He’s always thinking outside the chip, though. And I guess Snoke knew, could tell, how special he was. Ben took that internship ‘cuz he thought he’d learn enough to help us. 

>she pauses

>I’m sorry, I’m skipping all around. The long and the short of it is, Ben was always a better tracker than anything else-- ‘cept pilot, maybe. I thought he believed in our cause-- Luke thought that, too. We taught him, and he saw it enough first-hand, how people are living like rats at the bottom of a trash compactor. How everything’s dying outside the bubble, hell everything’s starting to die in the Outer Rim, too. We thought he was gonna learn something he could bring back to us. That’s what we taught him. Know your enemy. We thought that was what he intended to do. And maybe he did. But really, in his heart, I think he wanted to make a world he wasn’t afraid of. A world he could control. And they control everything, up there.

>she pauses

>He was too young. Too young, and too scared. And too special. They got him on that, sold him this brainwashed shit about how cybernetics divide us from our own humanity. Cyberpsychosis is a problem, but it’s not the tech’s fault we’re only interfacing it just as well as we need to for it to be sold. Technology could be our path to freedom, and then to evolution, but Snoke sees it the other way around. This bio-purist shit, I guess it made Ben think he could be safe. Safe from the fact that what he did with the Force scared people. Safe from our scarcity, our misjudgment. Luke, he’s had a lot of augs, now. His Jedi shit, it’s not as intact as it used to be. That made him look weak, and Snoke look strong. 

>she laughs briefly

>Ironic the old bastard has cancer, I guess. 

>she pauses

>Is that it? Do I need to talk about anything else, right now? Oh. Okay. Just an introduction to why he left. Think I got it, yeah. Okay. We’ll do more later, I gotta go, Lobo. Comm’s buzzin’, probably means something’s compromised. I’ll be back later, alright?

>transcription ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like cyberpunk AUs are few and far between for Star Wars, but here i am writing one anyway. if you find this, and you have a thought about about it, please feel free to drop a comment! :)


	2. lost inventory

The window of Hux’s office offered a breathtaking view of the massive sprawl of Coruscant, second only to that of the CEO’s suite above. From nearly the peak of First Order LLC’s imposing spire, a neon and LED bloodstream flowed through metal and concrete. Here, reaching for the stars amid the centrifuge of all economic ebb/flow on the planet, was the cruel heart that pushed it out and drew it back in again.

None of this occurred to the pale redhead as he was bent over the front of his desk, its black surface slick beneath his palms with sweat and spit. Behind him was another man, massive and dark-haired and turning red as he wheezed and growled and drove his hips mercilessly into Hux, his cock throbbing as he sought release. The office was pristine, elegant, designed as though to emphasize its crafted nature; Hux matched it with his delicate skin, coiffed hair, the faint glow of his subcutaneous augmentations. But the guttural sounds that both men issued and the string of pearly precum leaking from the redhead’s cock were unapologetically biological. 

“ _Shit_ ,” Kylo swore, one of his hands wrapping around the delicate neck just in front of him as his pace began to quicken. His final thrusts were desperate and violent, causing strangled mewls to struggle out from the vocal chords beneath his grip as he climaxed. Then he stuttered and failed, releasing Hux’s throat as he pulled out, panting.

“Maker, Ren,” growled Hux as he pushed himself up from the table. “Are you angry with someone?” 

“Why do you ask?” the dark-haired man replied, tugging up his pants.

“You just fucked me like you hated me.”

“Maybe I do hate you.” His face always seemed to be in a half-scowl, so Hux couldn’t read this response for what, if anything, lay genuine beneath it.

“Have your officers found that stray shipment of haz-mat, yet?” No need to linger on the subject if rudeness and opacity were all he was getting in response, of course. He too stood up and righted his clothes, their meticulous pressing ruined. 

“Scouts are out combing,” Kylo said gruffly as he continued to finish dressing. Finally the ginger’s eyes fell past the glass pane of the window and onto the city below. The light was fading, but down at the rotting foundations there would be nearly no discernible difference. Only the turn of warm day to bleached night.

“Snoke wants his product. He’s breathing down my neck about it.”

“Hope his breath’s keeping you warm, then. It’s cold outside.”

“Fuck off,” Hux said, narrowing his eyes as he glanced back at the larger man.

“Believe I just did,” Kylo replied with a faint smirk. Before Hux could retort, he placed his filtration helmet over his head, then turned and exited the office through its wide door. Lip curled, the redhead turned back to the view. His trysts with the Chief Operations Officer, which was far too elegant a designation for what Ren actually did, had never been tender. There was nothing emotional about their fucking. But even so, the man was grown so much more petulant these days that he was beginning to wonder if it was worth it to continue. Then, the visceral memory of a truly ample cock filling his ass only moments before jerked in his groin, and he sighed. 

Maybe it was still worth it, for the time being.

\-----

Deep in the belly of the same beast, inside a nondescript bar where dancers adorned in false jewels and strings twirled on platforms and patrons sipped their vices, a girl with three knots of hair tied down the back of her half-shaved head was perched on a stool next to a dark-skinned, dark-eyed man whose presence worked to make itself smaller. The girl, on the other hand, was sharp as a needle.

“So what was your job at _Supremacy_ spire, exactly?” Rey asked her companion as she stirred her drink absently. “You don’t scan like a soldier.”

“I was barely a soldier,” Finn replied, looking self-conscious. 

“You don’t scan like a Slymi, either,” she added with a smirk.

“Sanitation,” he grumbled. Rey laughed, but then stopped herself.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t tease you.”

“Thanks.” He did not sound grateful as he took a swallow of his liquor.

“What brought you into the LAN?”

“I got talked into it, like an idiot.”

“Oh.” She eyed him curiously. “By who?”

“One guess,” he said with a sigh.

“Poe?” she grinned. Despite himself, Finn smiled back. “You two are cute.”

“Thanks.” He seemed a shade more grateful, this time. “Though, gotta say, I wish he’d get done whatever he’s doin’ so we can get the fuck outta here. I’m ready to not be this close to that tower.”

“It’s fifteen hundred kilometers southeast,” she pointed out.

“This whole damn city is too close for comfort. They have Slymis and Req officers everywhere.”

“Fair enough.” She swallowed the last dregs of her drink.

“Should you be drinking? You don’t have a filtration aug yet.” His brow knit, worried.

“I’m fine,” Rey assured him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m not having another drink, anyway.” 

“You’re not one of those bio-puritans, are you?” he asked her with a playfully cocked brow.

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just poor.”

“Everyone’s poor if they come from the outer rim, or the bottom twelve levels of any given city. Those people still get augmented.”

“I’m _very_ poor.”

“Pretty sure Leia would set you up with a couple augs complimentary if you asked. She’s gonna get an oculus in your head no matter what.” Rey glanced at him, for the first time since he’d met her a few days ago seeming a little nervous.

“I know. Think I’ll adjust to that before I get anything else.” She slid her glass back towards the back of the bar, and just at that moment a pale green light flickered over Finn’s right eye. 

“We gotta go,” he said, suddenly urgent. The pair made for the exit, shuffling quickly between bawdy bargoers and the intent yet unfocused gazes of the dancers. Out on the drop-pad, they looked away from the arriving patrons and Finn scanned the dizzying flow of air traffic for a familiar ship. But it was his ears, rather than his eyes, that located his object.

“YAAAAAHOOOOO!” howled a voice as a beaten-up Y-wing that was missing its windshield cover hatch _whoosh_ _ed_ unceremoniously onto the platform without even putting down its feet. “Let’s hustle, people!” A man with sloping, scruffy cheekbones and a mop of curly black hair waved them in his direction, and a little round droid blipped in agreement from its compartment near the back. Without wasting a moment, they clambered into the extremely tight back seat of the little thing, just as a guard siren started to wail from the platform. 

“Gas, flyboy!” Finn urged, as security droids emerged from whichever cranny of the building they lurked in and made straight for them. **No aircraft on the car platform!** they ordered, flat and dim against the roar of the engines. With another whoop, Poe took off in a cloud of smoggy engine discharge. They made quickly for the aircraft highway, dodging the much smaller hover cars and swoop bikes by unruly margins. By the time they heard sirens again, Poe was prepping the turbo.

“Fuckin’ traffic cops, am I right?” he complained cheerfully. But before his companions could respond, the Y-wing jerked forward to make its ill-advised and madcap exit from the final kilometer stretch of the inter-city highway that lay inside the confines of Coruscant. “Fuck your jurisdiction, buddy!” the pilot shouted back at the distant flashing lights behind them.

“It physically hurts you to follow the rules, doesn’t it?” Finn asked him loudly over the engine noise. Rey laughed. 

“I got the thing! The thing Leia wanted,” Poe shouted back, apparently unperturbed.

“Well that’s good, where is it?” Rey asked.

“It’s in the damn mail!” the pilot replied, laughing. “I rerouted it! That’s pretty good, huh?”

“You didn’t pick it up yourself?” The girl seemed mildly horrified.

“What? No, the shipment’s way too big for me to haul on this thing, plus might as well put a locking target on our backs!”

“What if it doesn’t make the checkpoint? Or gets intercepted somehow?” Finn looked at Rey with a deeply creased forehead, then back at Poe.

“Hell, it’ll prolly get there before we do,” Poe said, laughing. “You two clearly didn’t drink enough. Don’t worry about it!” The others behind him groaned, unconvinced. The little droid chirped reassuringly.

“Thank you, BB-8,” Rey told it, less than enthusiastically. But the ship sailed on as the sound of sirens faded, compass trained on Jakku. 


	3. power and agony

The gala suite of Supremacy tower was an entire level unto itself, just below the habitation and office suites of the highest level executives. A labyrinth of smooth, black walls divided the floor into a ballroom, dance hall, banquet hall, lounges, powder rooms, theatre, art gallery, lofted balcony with a wet bar, and a platform botanical garden within a bubble of transparisteel. When it was in use, it was First Order, LLC’s cradle of clandestine business, indulgence, and opulence; tonight was no different.

Standing in the antechamber of the ballroom, Kylo Ren let his dark eyes drift out over the guests as they flitted between the tall tables and the sweep of the elegant buffet to his right. A band was tuning up, antique wooden instruments worth unseemly amounts of credits handled by their gloved-- and chipped-- players. If something were to happen to one of them, Snoke would want to know who was responsible, of course. The attendees were like wisps of gold foil and black inkblots on the paper-white ballroom floor; their inane chatter mulled together until unintelligible. Once in a while, someone from another city clad in their native garb would move around like a brightly-colored piece of confetti, out of place in the sea of monochromatic couture but bold enough, and proud enough, to hold their own. He wondered passively if Snoke issued dress codes for these things, or if it was just the height of fashion these days to reject colors. Too much color down in the lower levels, where poverty proliferated between neon signs.

Nobody approached him as they passed by, but for once this was not because of his reputation. He was not in uniform. Though he was still extremely tall and broad of both chest and shoulder, without the Requisitions coat and filtration helmet even his direct subordinates wouldn’t have recognized him. Now, as he stood in a crisp white shirt, black jacket and trousers, and black shoes so shiny he could nearly see his reflection in them, he just looked like another business man. One with extraordinarily demure taste in clothing, perhaps. The thrill of being anonymous was that he could observe and interact with people as they truly were, without the inhibitor of fear he usually inspired. Of course, this was part of his job, too, he told himself.

“Would you care for champagne, sir?” asked a tinny voice, and he glanced back down the hall to see a service droid bearing a platter of tall glass flutes. The carbonated liquid inside them glowed faintly with bioluminescent cultures. 

“No, thank you.” His voice was steel covered in velvet.

“Very well, sir,” it replied, and rolled off through the antechamber and downwards into the fray. Just as he was about to turn back around, a flicker of color caught his eye. Far down the hallway, someone in a red dress was emerging from a doorway. They were alone, glancing around before slipping into an adjacent hallway. Kylo’s brow furrowed, and he turned and strode down the hall in quiet pursuit. 

Turning the corner, he barely caught a flash of red slipping between two of the gray marble pillars that lined the banquet hall. It was too late in the evening for anyone to be in that room; it was being broken down after dinner. But more than that, Kylo had been present since the start of the gala and had not seen anyone in a red dress.

He should have tapped his comm right then and called for security, if he was going by protocol. But the young psion had other methods when it came to doing his job, and he knew that interrupting this particular party would reap even less pleasant consequences than usual, if it was done for anything less than a paramount security problem. A latecomer, while terribly gouche, did not yet constitute an actual threat. Instead of following on the heels of his quarry, he turned back and made his way down another hallway to the second dance hall. 

While the ballroom was enormous, with a vaulted ceiling and one long wall of windows looking out over the expanse of Coruscant below, the dance hall was smaller, darker, and moodily lit with tubes that created pools of red and blue light. Music was already playing here, its pulsating beat and lazy, sensual tones a stark contrast to the antiquated sounds that would soon be filling the ballroom. Kylo strode purposefully through the space and made for its other exit. He slipped through a door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY and into a gray hallway, past multiple control rooms until he found the observation room. 

Dozens of screens flashed, recordings of the entire gala all in-progress from minute cameras that lay hidden in the very walls. He looked in through the window at each screen until he found that flash of red, then peeled away to another exit.

When he entered the foyer of the empty theater, he cut left through another employee hallway and emerged into the oppressive white light of the sculpture garden. The door shutting behind him seemed to vanish into the wall. Just as it did, a figure in a red dress rounded a nearby corner and floated into the open space. They weren’t looking at him; in fact, they seemed to be gazing raptly at one of the pieces. It was a huge figure forged of black bronze, cloaked and hooded, abstracted into a windswept form. Kylo walked quietly up behind his quarry. 

“I’m not supposed to be here, I know,” came a gravelly voice unexpectedly, though they did not turn around to face him. He had been moving as silently as he could, but perhaps this guest was more acute of hearing-- or less drunk-- than the others. “I was just looking.” 

“It’s quite alright that you’re here,” Kylo replied, his low voice quiet so as not to alarm them. “Just, most of the other guests are getting ready to dance.” His eyes ran from the back of their head, which was covered in a tousle of close-cropped dark hair, down the supple curve of their back which was exposed rather beautifully by the gown. Then its fabric fell down to the floor, trailing behind just a little.

“Do you not dance, then?” they asked, still gazing up at the imposing sculpture. 

“Not usually.” 

“Neither me. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“You prefer to look at art?”

“I’ve not spent much time looking at art before this, I confess,” she laughed softly; he thought it rather a sweet sound. “I wanted to get away from the noise. I suppose I took the opportunity that presented itself. Found myself drawn to this one.” He looked past her for a moment, up at the sculpture. It looked like driftwood, blackened almost to charcoal, assembled to create a movement that left the very clear impression of a figure that even without a face seemed to stare down at them, condemning and ominous. But he’d seen it many times before; his gaze flitted quickly back to the crop of hair that framed a face he had not yet seen.

“I like this one, too,” he said, stepping closer, feeling himself get more and more maddeningly curious. He could not feel any stream of thoughts from this stranger, no incessant subconscious chatter like the idle tittering of birds in the garden. As though she spoke exactly each thought that came into her head. 

“What do you see in it?” she asked. He took another step, a tiny sliver of her face coming nearly into view. He glanced back up. 

“Power,” he decided, eyes lingering on that faceless face once more as he took a final step to draw level with her. “And you?” 

“Agony." Finally they looked at one another. 

By all accounts, he had expected someone beautiful. The attendees of Snoke’s little fetes always were, could always afford to be. Many of them were almost sculpted, wrought with a surgeon’s precision into augmented forms of staggering perfection. It was uncanny, how perfect they looked. But the face he saw was nearly the opposite of that-- not-quite-perfect in the most beautiful way he could remember ever seeing. Full, unruly brows framed hazel eyes rimmed with dark lashes, a delicate aquiline nose, and sweet, plush lips. One side of her bottom lip was just a little larger than the other, and faint freckles just barely dotted her cheeks. 

He was a little uncertain, in fact, about the sensation in his gut when he looked at her. But he was deeply fascinated as to why he heard nothing from her mind, why his psionic senses did not perk at all in response to her. 

It didn’t bother him that those slightly flecked cheeks flushed pink when she looked up at him, though. As though she was also not expecting to see what she saw. As though he was not a highly trained killer, tactician, and psion who was owned in every legal respect by the corporation he worked for, and she was not… whatever she was. Two well-dressed strangers, at a corporate function of the highest caliber, surprised to find themselves drawn to each other. He couldn’t help but smirk, just a little. 

“You missed dinner,” he said.

“I was relieved they allowed me inside, late as I was.”

“Shame. It was excellent. And the wine, the very best from the ancient vineyards outside Jedha.” 

“I don’t drink much.” Her eyes seemed to sparkle. “I didn’t know the Jedi did, either.”

“They didn’t. But the people who lived in the holy city did.” His smirk widened. “And not all who follow those ways are saints.” She canted her head, and returned his smirk. 

“Are you an unsaintly follower of the Jedi ways, then?” 

“No. But it wasn’t only Jedi who worshipped at Jedha.”

“So I’ve heard.” She turned more fully towards him. A modest neckline and long sleeves on her dress gave way to a skirt that opened up to the waist in two high slits to tease what was beneath even as it revealed her shapely legs and a hidden, shorter skirt. Something about that dress, maybe, how brazenly coy it was. Or maybe it was the thrill of not being known. Or just how natural and instantaneous their mutual attraction was, how unedited she appeared. The blissful silence in his mind, standing only near her. Their eyes met.

“You don’t drink, and you don’t dance,” he mused finally. “How else are we meant to get to know one another?”

“We could try talking,” she suggested wryly.

“Do people still talk?” He feigned surprise, and held out his arm for her to take. “We can sit in the garden. Away from the noise.” Her eyes glanced down at his arm, then back up at his face. A faint smile played on that pleasant mouth, before she strode past him in the direction of the botanical garden, ignoring his offer. Mystified, Kylo followed behind, letting his arm drop back to his side.

“Do you work here, then?” she asked over her shoulder as they approached the transparent door, which slid open obligingly. The air outside was half fresh. Despite the high altitude, it still had to be filtered heavily for toxins.

“I do,” he replied, taking a breath, watching her figure advance along the stone path that was laid into the grass. The smell of the roses that lined the pathways was heady, but it was cut by the slight chill. Outside the glass dome, there were no stars. The spire was wrapped in a ponderous black cloud, and he wondered if it would rain.

“Do you like it?” Once she reached a crossroads of two paths she stopped and let him catch up. Two of the divergent ways were covered with lattice and vines, the ones that led deeper into the garden. 

“It’s alright.” He stepped up beside her. “Pays the bills, you know.” She raised an eyebrow at him. If someone didn’t offer their job description at this level, often there was a reason. It was the unspoken etiquette of the corporate elite that they didn’t ask, if they were not told. 

“Hm,” was all she said. “Which way?”

“Do you like fountains, or would you prefer another sculpture to look at?” 

“A fountain, I think.” He nodded down one pathway, and they walked into the darkness beneath the ivy together.

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I work for my father,” she replied, expression opaque.

“Do you like it?” He was testing her a little, throwing her own question back at her.

“It pays the bills.” She glanced sidelong at him, slightly smug. Something about the idea of just not talking business at all was appealing to Kylo. He was not terribly concerned about a security breach at that point, though he remained attentive. 

“What about the gala? How do you find it, so far?” 

“It’s beautiful. Supremacy Spire lives up to its reputation.” They emerged from the darkness beneath the ivy into another open space, this one much larger. The faint singsong of water trickling over a curved wall of black stone filled his ears, and he watched the stranger approach the fountain with the same captured interest as she had the sculpture. It was almost childlike, that curiosity. Her description of the piece from before flitted through his mind. _Agony._

“I’m sure the executives would be happy to hear that.” He watched her perch on the rim of the fountain where the rivulets pooled, and reach rather fearlessly down to the surface of the water to touch it gently. Most of the guests were loath to come into contact with fountain water, no matter how many hundred times it was filtered. Ripples migrated out from her fingers to meet with the ripples caused by the fountain itself, and they muddled together and lost themselves. 

“This place has a lot of reputation,” she said, looking back at him. “I wonder if it lives up to all of it?”

“Are you asking me?” He stepped closer.

“Only if you want to answer.”

“What reputations are you referring to?” 

“Well, I’ve confirmed its... grandeur,” she began carefully, glancing all around the garden for a moment. “I suppose the other most sizable rumor is its ruthlessness.” 

“Ah.” Kylo was fairly sure he knew what she was getting at.

“Do you know if that’s true, too? The Requisitions Department especially, they say, isn’t to be trifled with.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not from Coruscant, and I haven’t spent much time here, so I have no firsthand knowledge.”

“The Requisitions Department operates outside of geographic jurisdiction,” he pointed out. “Legally, property is property no matter where it is.”

“This, I’ve also heard. I guess I’m lucky my father has never been at odds with First Order. In fact, he seems keen to partner with it.” 

“You are very lucky, then,” Kylo cooed, close enough now that he had to look down at her as she sat on the rim of the pool. He was massive, and this stranger was barely average in height. Now, sitting as she was, her face was level with his belly button. His hand wandered out as if of its own volition to touch her cheek, but he stopped himself. Had he ever been so drawn to a person?

“Perhaps I am.” There was a brightness in her eyes. “Their infamous COO doesn't seem to be present, tonight, though. I admit I’m a little disappointed.” This caused his mood to chill, threatened to break the gossamer illusion he’d been enjoying by reminding him who he was, and what his job was supposed to be. If only for the sake of this inexplicable creature’s attention, he had begun to deeply enjoy not thinking about work. Was this what normal high-level executives did at galas after they got done shaking hands behind closed doors? Drank, ate obscenely decadent dinners, flirted with strangers they might never see again?

“I’m sorry if that particular expectation wasn’t met for you, then.”

“Well, I did get to look at some beautiful things,” she intoned to him, rising to her feet but remaining very, very close to him. Their eye contact brought him right out of his brief spell of moodiness, the smile on her face showing a single dimple on the left cheek. Another asymmetrical perfection.

“Oh?” 

“The art was nice, too,” she added, terribly coy. He felt his lopsided smirk return. Her confidence was intoxicating. 

“I’d certainly say I’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the landscape around here tonight,” he purred back, leaning in a little closer. 

“I’m afraid it’s not a permanent fixture.” 

“So much the better. Then I’ll get to miss it, later.” Her smile was curious, maybe a little surprised at this. 

“You haven’t got anything to miss yet.” Tilting her head back, the stranger let their faces hover very close with her mouth slightly agape in a rosy little smirk. If ever there was an invitation, he thought, this was it. He closed the distance between their mouths, skipping the sweetness of pressing their lips together in favor of taking her bottom lip between his. The heavy breath that escaped her immediately sent warmth flooding through him. That subtle electricity that had been building between the two of them from the moment they’d first spoken was arcing between their bodies-- she the clouds, he the ocean. Their tongues danced languid and indulgent against each other. He felt her hand slide up over his shirt, inside his jacket, running over his torso like she was mapping it. Sliding his hand around her waist, he let his fingers run across her exposed back, digging in just a touch at the base of her spine before trailing fingers up to the back of her neck. Her body contained the tremors this touch elicited, but only just. 

“Would you like to give me something to miss?” he asked, voice hoarse with his desire. His other hand was on her hip now, holding her gently but urgently to him.

“I would,” was her whispered reply. “I wish I could. But I gotta go.”

“Oh, you do?” he asked, slightly surprised. “Will I see you again?”

“Not tonight.” She kissed him once more before drawing away, looking back at him with an apologetic smile. Was it a little bit sad? His hands fell away from her form as she put a few inches between their bodies.

“After tonight, then?”

“I don’t know.” But he heard no accompanying secrets, no inner monologue of thoughts that might clarify what he was detecting in her face-- or tell him if it was really there, and not simply something he wanted to be there. She reached out a hand to his cheek, stroking it with her thumb. Her last smile was sweet, gentle, and already gone. Without another word she turned and exited the garden through the ivy-shrouded passage.

 _Wait!_ He thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. He stood there long after her silhouette could no longer be seen through the passageway, strangely bereft.


	4. delivery

In the inhospitable outskirts of the outer rim city of Jakku, the dust was nearly the same rust-orange as the sky. Not yet a fully sand desert, the cracked skin of the earth did not bleed beneath their feet as Finn, Rey, and Poe all three trudged towards an outcropping of rocks. The wind-blasted towers were like a miniature mimicry of the scrapers of Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa, as desolate as those cities were teeming. Behind the travelers was an enormous metal box, five meters tall and fifteen square, towing along behind them on a repulsorlift platform where BB-8 was also perched.

“Whatever’s in this, it’s gotta be heavy,” Finn said through his labored breath. “These things never run this slow.” In his exhaustion, he felt as though they’d been crawling all morning, which made the heat and toil even more unbearable.

“Yanno, I didn’t actually ask what it was,” Poe remarked, rubbing his lower lip in thought. He panted too, sweat beading on his brow and sticking curls to his forehead.

“You just jumped at the chance to feel useful and fly fast, huh?” Rey teased the pilot. Of the three, she was the least affected by their passage. Having lived only in the desert up until very recently, her lean muscles were accustomed to the terrain and heat, and assisted by her electrostaff.

“You know me. Plus, it’s not like you two were doin’ any hackin’ either,” Poe laughed.

“It was  _ my _ codes that got you access to that order in the first place,” Finn reminded him. “That’s almost hacking, right?”

“Close enough,” Poe chuckled fondly.

“And it was  _ my _ rigging that made sure that hunk of shit we were in was skyworthy,” Rey chimed in. 

“Crack-rigging an airship doesn’t count as hacking, it’s mechanical engineering,” said Finn.

“As opposed to digital engineering?” Rey countered.

“Not that it’s not just as important, obviously,” the ex-corporate added, smiling a little nervously. This seemed to satisfy the girl, who gave a dimpled smile in return. Poe glanced between the two, a knowing smirk on his face. Suddenly a breeze came to tug at their clothes, and Rey’s head whipped around in the direction it hailed from.

“That’s a storm,” she said, face fallen. “How long ‘till we get there?” 

“Not long till we hit the rocks, maybe fifteen minutes?” said Poe. 

“That might be enough time."

“Might be?” Finn looked dismayed. He was the only one among them without goggles or a kerchief to hold the itchy dust-motes at bay.

“You shoulda brought your stuff, babe,” Poe chided him, but not harshly.

“I didn’t realize we were gonna have to take a desert hike.”

“Sorry, I didn’t either. The mail thing was totally me pantsing it. I wasn’t trying to push the engine towing this shit, despite your excellent mechanical engineering, Rey.” 

“That’s giving me retroactive anxiety,” Finn groaned, rubbing his forehead. At that moment a distant and muffled whirring sound seemed to play on the air, pushed through by the wind. The ex-corporte glanced all around, scanning for its source. “Now  _ that’s _ giving me even more anxiety.”

“That sounds like a mule,” noted Rey, who was also seeking the source. “Is it coming from the rocks?”

“Seems so,” Poe muttered, but his hackles were up. It reminded him of another sound, one he had profoundly unpleasant associations with. They fell silent, and the pilot shushed BB-8 who was beeping excitedly. But it wasn’t long before their visitor, whoever it was, came up like an undulating heat-specter on the horizon. No one suggested that they stop or flee, as there was no way they hadn’t been spotted also, and so they continued at their glacial pace along the same road. But Finn and Poe’s hands were on their blasters, and Rey gripped her staff in anticipation. 

But lo, as the grimy mechanical replacement for a pack animal came upon them, a familiar face raised an eyebrow from atop it. 

“Hey dustheads, it’s just me. Quit being rude,” came Leia’s voice, and the taut string between the two parties fell slack.

“We weren’t expecting a welcome wagon!” Poe grinned.

“Well, this shit’s heavy, so. Thought I might come out and see if you made the checkpoint on-time for once.” She sat at the helm of the mule in her jumpsuit, eye shield extended with lots of blue-light projections running on it as her augmentation continuously scanned the environment. “We can ride the rest of the way back.”

“You’re a savior,” Finn sighed.

“I try,” she replied dryly. They wasted no time connecting the platform to the mule’s hitch and climbing onto the seats to take off. It wasn’t fast compared to anything but their feet, but by then even that was a relief. Soon, though, dust just barely started to swirl and eddy along the edges of the air currents. They were within sight of a massive blast-door embedded in the rock, where figures stood awaiting their return so they could shut the coming dustbuster out.

“Just in time!” Poe scampered off the mule and joined in the effort to haul the metal box in before the dust got really bad, and as soon as it crossed the threshold the wind picked up even more. The blast door began to close even as the storm struck.

“Smart of you, to send it like a package to Jakku post,” Leia said to them. 

“True ad-hoc genius,” Rey confirmed, smirking at Poe whose face fell and he scowled at her even as he blushed.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that part,” the older woman muttered. Finn and Rey stifled giggles. “We need to open this thing up and make sure it’s all intact, then I’ll take it down to storage.”

When the lid of the enormous block of metal slid away, the onlookers fell silent. Inside, a soup of translucent fluid cradled bizarre ingredients in their own little cubbies like a massive ice tray. Blue gelatinous clumps, sinewy clusters of what looked like plastic wires or tubes, folds of soft plastic, and a cluster of what looked like plastic bubbles that clung to one another. 

“What the fuck is all that?” asked Poe, ever the mouthpiece of the common denominator.

“It’s silica-tech.” When Leia did not offer more elaboration, the other three stared at her, and she eyed them back. “It’s a wetware thing. Bigger than the basics for augs. You don’t see much of it out here in buttfuck outer rim. Or below the twentieth level of anywhere else.”

“Shit. That’s expensive plastic,” Finn murmured.

“Good thing we didn’t pay for it, huh?” She was being dry again, but a tiny smirk gave her away. “Alright. Lock it up. I’ll haul it down there myself.” 

“Wait, but what’s it for?” Rey asked, fascinated and confused. She had fixed almost nothing digital in her life, much less had the chance to learn about wetware. But then again, no place in Jakku had ever had anything wetter than garden-variety low-tier cybernetics, unless you ordered it special. Leia paused and looked at her before she replied. 

“For whenever we need it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm having fun with the slang in this setting xD


	5. transcript log 02.33

>//server/LAN/system/library/target/kylo/data/history/file:oLBF17xABY.vid

>recorded [date redacted], 02.33 Luke Skywalker

>transcribed by  Ph|2/\k+a|_

>buffering…

>key:

>password accepted

>notes: You have heard of Luke before in previous recordings. He is Leia’s brother, and uncle of Ben Solo as well as his trainer before he took the internship at FO, LLC. Luke is weathered by his years, but perhaps moreso by this situation. But he has finally agreed to lend his voice to this compendium, despite previous misgivings, and for that we are grateful. His relationship with Ben was utterly unique, and you will need this perspective if you are to see Kylo Ren clearly.

>transcription begins

>Where do I even start? 

>he pauses

>I guess I’ll start where it makes sense to. I started teaching Ben almost as soon as he could understand the words I was saying. He was gonna grow up in the middle of this, like it or not, but we thought we had a chance in those days. We really thought we could reverse the damage Empire Corps had done to the planet, thought we could save the places that were starting to turn to dust. Nobody knows where First Order, LLC got their funding. But they snapped up every single mom ‘n pop chip joint we helped get started after Empire got the big hack. There was blood involved, I know that better than anybody else. They were never interested in ethics. If money didn’t work, they fell back on more archaic forms of manipulation. 

>he sighs

>Anyway. Ben was about twelve years old when the buy-ups started. It took them less than two years to cripple their competitors, all but the biggest companies that agreed to partner with and provide resources-- and the ones that can’t be pinned down because they exist in the web more than in real life, like Mandalore. The ones that already had their own corner of the market, and so First Order couldn’t validate the expense of trying to monopolize. Not yet, anyway. Everything shifted. I was trying to teach Ben and a few others-- kids, mostly, though Ben was the youngest. We found them on the streets, at the bottom of everything, or crawling out of the sewers trying to survive their own addictions. The Force came in handy but Ben and me, we didn’t tell anyone what it was we were doing. Psions still aren’t trusted by, well, anybody much. Once they were worshipped, but that’s almost worse. 

>he rubs his forehead

>The panic as the markets started to default, the money vanished, the whole goddamn economy caved in so fast. It had to scare Ben to death, seeing us all watching the numbers drop. We were all scared. People were dying, and the bubble project got fast-tracked by First Order. Ben thought… well. He thought he could fix it. The ecosystem, I mean. Not just inside, but the whole damn thing. The global ecosystem. 

>he shakes his head and almost laughs

>The Force, he really believed in it. I guess it makes sense when you see what being a psion really means. But it would’ve killed him to try. It would’ve killed me. My augs got more and more necessary, what with the water going sour before the filtration taps got installed most everywhere. The lab was where we were gonna find a way to tie the Force in with the tech. My saber is proof enough that it’s possible. But it was taking forever, because we were the only ones working on it. There are no other Jedi left. The kids we trained, they were crack hackers and incredible technicians, as you know very well, Taran. Some of ‘em are still with us.

>he smiles

>But, it wasn’t fast enough for Ben. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. He wasn’t enough. 

>he looks down

>He hated keeping the Force a secret. He wanted to fix everything. And mostly he wanted his dad to come back, I think. But Han’s still not back, and it was never Ben’s fault he left in the first place. I wonder if he’ll ever believe that. 

>he pauses

>he looks up

>When they offered him the internship at First Order, I knew something wasn’t right. But I couldn’t tell what it was-- my connection to the Force is so weak, now. I’m still working on the technology interfacing, but I’ll shit a brick if I get it before I’m dead. This girl, Rey, she’s the closest thing to hope I’ve had in a long time. That eventually, someone will continue my work. Ben, he won’t do it. He’s gone. It’s Kylo’s world now, and he’s gonna consume it. 

>he shifts

>I’m not sure I can continue, Taran. I need a minute. Okay. Thank you. 

>transcription ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope these fragments and the non-linear thing does a good job of immersing you in the world while also still informing you about it since the worldbuilding in this fic is kinda intense (hence the tag "unnecessarily ambitious" lol) 
> 
> if you think it is or it isn't, feel free to let me know. i WANT readers to have certain questions, but other things i hope are clear. i'm still cutting my teeth on the non-linear thing so feedback is appreciated!


	6. new orders

Under the talons of his employer, Armitage Hux is even less merciful than he would be otherwise. And his father didn’t _raise_ him at all, despite being his caretaker, and that is most of why he is so cunning, and so cruel. Snoke drives him to the utmost end of empathy, and he knows this.

He feels nothing at all when he sends out orders to the Requisitions Department to ‘re-acquire’ entire companies. VR and the net are rampant with startups, but as soon as they stick a toe into any tangible industry they are at risk of acquisition by the larger conglomerate. Web-based capital still doesn’t move more of the world than the real, physical need for resources, and Snoke wants to keep it that way. As Chief Financial Officer, this is a primary concern for Hux. 

Another primary concern is that his investors, his business partners, and his tributary companies are all in line. They cannot move outside of their role, Snoke says, or they will uproot the living system of which First Order, LLC is the canopy, the crown, the godhead.

His job is to prune, with utmost care and vigilance, the financial landscape in which the company is situated. Not to chase down an inexplicably lost shipment. That’s Ren’s job, he told himself. Why the fuck is _he_ being presented with this concern? Isn’t Ren some sort of psion? Shouldn’t he be able to find a stray container of--

Then Hux looked down at the datapad. For the first time since the product was flagged, he read the contents of the order. 

“Ren,” he barked into the comm that was installed in his left cranial augmentation. He tapped a soft place by his ear to open the sub-frequency. But the COO didn’t answer. 

“REN!” 

For the second time since the spring fundraising gala, Kylo Ren was unavailable. Hux growled, and stormed out of his office.

\-----

“Phasma,” said the immaculate CFO as he entered the observation lab on the 37th floor. This was lower than he usually liked to go, but not getting a response on his hail infuriated him no end. 

“Sir,” replied the impossibly tall, blonde woman. She was beautiful, Hux thought. She could’ve been perfect, but that was not where she chose to spend her stipend. Standing at the window that overlooked the conditioning hall below, she did not turn to face him yet. Eyes of ice were trained on figures that moved slowly through a procession of poses, learning to control every minute muscle in their lithe, strange bodies. The redhead approached, looked out from beside her. 

“I have a problem.” 

“What’s that, sir?” 

“I have a lost shipment, and my COO is indisposed.” He didn’t know if Ren was actually indisposed, but he took the silence on the other end of his comm very personally.

“Is Ren allowed to be indisposed?”

“He’s Snoke’s pet. He’s allowed a great many more things than you or I.”

“And he can’t procure a single shipment of inventory?” Her eyes never left the conditioning hall. One of the figures wobbled in its motions, and was immediately struck with a bolt of electricity from the collar around its throat. It wailed, and hastily resumed moving in time with the others. 

“I’m not sure what the problem is, but this is not a routine order. I assume Ren is searching for it day and night, but as he has failed utterly to communicate, I am enlisting your assistance.” 

“I see.” Phasma finally glanced at him, and the silvery sheen of her oculus caught the light, turning her left pupil eerie and bright. “Would you like me to assign it to an upper-level Slymicon, sir?” 

“Chase it down yourself, if you must, but find it. I leave the method to your discretion,” Hux looked down his nose back at the movement below. “These aren’t skinned yet, are they?”

“No sir,” Phasma replied. “Snoke has asked us not to waste skins on the ones that fail conditioning.”

“Is it painful for them?” The only emotion that colored his voice was a passing curiosity. 

“I don’t know. I imagine so, but they spend twelve hours a day in the bacta-tanks.”

“Hm.” Hux raised an eyebrow. The tall, sinewy blue bodies shot through with yellow veins were monstrous in a way that was unparalleled. They seemed almost wet, and this early in the process they still seemed fragile. Once swollen with the strength they were known for, though, seeing one without its skin would be even more appalling. He wondered if they’d make an interesting spectacle for the next gala. One of the rejects, perhaps. But he turned to sweep out of the observation lab as he mused, calling behind him as the door slid open. “Do get started on your efforts as close to immediately as possible, Phasma.”

“Yes, sir.” 


	7. interruption

In the darkened mess hall, Poe pushed Finn back against the service door, growling into his mouth. His nails bit the ex-corporate’s torso as he gripped it, grinding hips together. Their lips battled for dominance, hands seeking velvet skin beneath folds of clothing. Both men were rock hard, hungry for other nourishment than what the now closed mess usually provided. 

“You like her, don’t you?” murmured the pilot into his lover’s ear.

“Maybe.”

“Why don’t you do something about it?” 

“I just--”

“You weren’t this shy with me.” There was a familiar smirk on Poe’s face as he pulled it far enough away to stare into Finn’s eyes. 

“You know what you want.”

“You’re right.” He palmed Finn’s erection through his trousers, eliciting a groan. “I do.” Poe’s hands were fumbling at the belt and fly that stood between him and the flesh that beckoned him, and he slid a warm hand under the fabric. 

“ _Shit._ ” One of Finn’s palms was on his lover’s face, then the other, and he arched his back against the door. Poe leaned in to slide his tongue between Finn’s teeth, to swallow the groans of pleasure that his strokes created.

Suddenly the sound of the door opening jolted them both out of their heated state, and two heads whipped around to see Rey gasp. It was too dim for the men to see it, but she felt her face flush hot. The split-second image of the pilot with his hand around the ex-corporate’s stiff cock-- just visible enough beneath his clothes to suggest its _girth--_

“Sorry,” the girl muttered, turning away, covering her eyes with her hand as though it would block out the memory (it wouldn’t). Poe thought the motion was precious, but Finn pushed his hand away, breath heavy now with embarrassment rather than arousal, and hastily closed his fly.

“It-- it’s okay--”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t be taking up communal space like this anyhow,” the pilot interjected before the other man could assemble his thoughts. He was smug, far from perturbed. “What brings you here?”

“I was just-- looking for uh, one or both of you--”

“How can we help?” Finn was painfully earnest.

“I uh,” she began, not completing the steps she’d begun to take back towards the door. “I’m… Leia’s been talking about installing my oculus. I’m just, I want to know more before I agree.” She still wasn’t quite looking at them, despite the fact that both men were appropriately covered now.

“Oh, well, that’s easy,” Poe said. “Go talk to Lobo. He’s downstairs in his lair, prolly.” 

“Where’s that?” 

“B5, and he’s the only one who’s down that far usually. You’ll find him easy once you get there,” Finn offered. “Can we-- uh-- I’m sorry we--”

“It’s fine, sorry I interrupted.” Rey was looking at them now, eyes wide, but also backing towards the door. “Thank you both, I’ll head down there now, um--”

“Rey, it’s really alright.” Poe offered a placating hand gesture. “Don’t worry about it.”

Perhaps he did not understand just what was worrying her.

“Mkay, I won’t, bye!” She pushed the hinged door open and fled as quickly as she could. Poe lifted an eyebrow after her, then looked back at Finn. 

“Maker.” The ex-corporate was rubbing his forehead, shoulders taut with his frustration.

“It’ll be alright, babe,” his lover cooed, reaching out to rub his strong arm. 

“I don’t think that elevated my chances,” Finn groaned. 

“Hey.” Now Poe was close before him again, rubbing both his arms, pressing their noses together. “We can deal with it later. Okay?” The frustrated sigh meant it would take Finn a moment to let it go, he knew. He took that handsome, beloved face in his hands, moved his lips to capture the ones before him. 

Slow, honey kisses never failed to draw Finn out of worry, fear, anger. Soon he was back against the door with one hand sliding under Poe’s belt, gripping his ass powerfully. 

“You liked that she saw us.” The pilot’s hands were right back at his zipper, impatient, but at this he glanced through his eyebrows at the other man. That smirk was back, smaller and more secret. 

“Maybe.” Finn was pushing up the dusty shirt that was between his hands and Poe’s golden flesh.

“ _Maybe._ ”

“That’s what I said.” He was drifting towards the floor, taking a knee, letting his lover tug his shirt up over his shoulders. Finn watched beneath heavy lids, clung to thick curls of black hair. “Don’t tell me you didn’t like it, too.” 

“I wasn’t--” But hot, wet lips were like lightning driving his breath out and back in sharply. “ _Fuck--_ ” 

In the gloom of the hallway, Rey’s eyes grew huge as she peeked-- fuck, this wasn’t okay, but she couldn’t _help_ it-- through the tiny window in the mess hall door. The faint light from the service galley behind them fell on Finn’s torso as it heaved from his gasps, on Poe’s hair as it bobbed back and forth. Her cunt was throbbing, shame and surprise eddying through her. But guilt came on their heels, and she drew silently away to leave the lovers to each other.


	8. oculus

Subterranean levels are not uncommon in desert cities, where heat hangs ponderous and stifling every moment the sun is up. But the base was, Rey thought, possibly the deepest she’d ever been, and it brought on a mild claustrophobia as she entered serpentine halls pressed round on all sides by the dense red earth.

B5 was, as promised, sparse. The passages were gently illuminated by tube lights that ran all the way down them unbroken, casting a pinkish glow. Silence ate even her feather-light steps at first, but then she heard the hum of processors and strange mechanical sounds like aural breadcrumbs making a trail to Taran Lobo’s lab.  She knocked on the door, and it slid open.

“My cameras saw you,” said the figure that was hunched over a desk with fingers tapping away. All around the room were boxes, crates, other screens, half-assembled tech, and cabinets with locks on them. The table in the center of the room was a sprawl of horizontal work space, cluttered with droid parts and instruments of mechanical surgery.

“Oh,” she replied, blinking as her eyes cast their net trying to take it all in. The desk was in a corner, several monitors a blur of text above it.

“They see everyone who comes down here, as most of our more valuable assets live here.”  _ Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. _ His backlit figure was difficult to properly make out.  _ How can anyone type that quickly? _ “I’m not one of those, by the way. I’m just the tech monkey!” 

“I hear otherwise.”

“You’re kind, dear.” His voice was a gentle contra-tenor, friendly, and put her at ease. “What might I help you with?” 

“Well, I’m supposed to get an oculus soon. But I’m not familiar with the process, and I wanted to learn more about it before I agreed.” This seemed to catch the strange man’s attention enough for him to turn his eye to her. Singular, because his other eye was covered with a massive black lens set in a metal ring. He was bald with a long beard, skin bleached from lack of sun, covered in minor augs-- the old kind, plainly visible like metal barnacles clinging to him. 

“Ah, yes, you’re the pure one!” 

“I don’t like that term much.” 

“Forgive me, dear, force of habit. I’ve been at this a while.” He spun about more fully, and she stifled a squeak when she saw his third arm. It wasn’t fleshlike at all, but such bizarre augs were much less than uncommon. He grinned, a kind face full of mischief. “Nobody warned you, huh?” 

“Er, no.” Her heartbeat slowed. “Sorry--”

“It’s alright.” In fact it seemed to delight him. “Fret not. You’ve come to the right place if you have questions about augmentations. Sit!” 

“Mr. Lobo--”

“Oh please, Lobo is fine. Or Taran, if you’ve got something against surnames, but everyone calls me Lobo except Luke.” 

“Lobo.” She took one of the stools at the other table and perched, birdlike. “I just want to know about, well... everything. How do they get it in?” 

“I install them, dear.” His two flesh arms folded their hands into his lap, and the cybernetic one gripped the edge of the desk and turned the chair on its pivot back and forth idly. “I look a mess, I know, but making them incredibly natural is my specialty.” 

“You--”

“It’s a surgical procedure.” He tapped something on the metal above his left ear, and the black lens over his left eye retracted. A much more typical nano-screen appeared to replace it, covering an otherwise perfectly normal-looking eye in a faint teal wash. “This hunk of junk? This used to be the standard oculus! But of course they’re not like this now. Much less obvious, much more streamlined with the nanites. Surgery is quick, these days. Ten minutes tops. Some folks elect to remain conscious and watch, in fact.” 

This just caused Rey to shudder, imagining her cornea being lifted and replaced with something made of silicone. 

“I think I’d rather not.” 

“Quite alright,” Lobo assured her.

“How… do the nanites work?” He sensed her discomfort in the way the question came out.

“In layfolk’s terms, they line the ocular nerve and modify the signals sent from the eye to the brain.” 

“Do they affect the brain in any other way?” 

“No.” He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back against his chair. “They don’t enter the brain at all, actually, only the nerves behind the eye. Essentially hacking the body’s natural vision mechanism.” 

“Oh.” She turned this over in her mind. 

“Are you worried about nanites messing with your brain, dear?” He seemed once again to be impishly amused. 

“A little, yeah.” Perhaps a lot of people were, she thought, people who didn’t know how they worked, and that was what tickled him. She was fine with playing along those lines. 

“It’s very human, to desire not to feel invaded by little parasites, but these aren’t that. They interface with the body’s systems beautifully. The tech’s come a long way since I started. Almost none of the augs alter the distribution or the chemistry of the brain.”

“Which ones do?” 

“Lemme see. The cranials, they’re embedded in the pre-frontal cortex. Only one or two of them actually move the gray matter, though, and only barely. The sub-cranials shift things massively, but that’s why they’re illegal.” His false arm scratched his beard as he thought. “Touching the vagus nerve can be problematic, but we’ve actually kept a lot of the augs away from it now. Turns out tapping into the mainline can addle the ol’ noggin a bit, so we bypass it through less busy routes for cybernetic limbs and the like, to avoid the major encephalopathies. I invented that technique, by the way,” he added in a low, conspiratorial tone, “with this fellow right here!” The third arm waved at her, and she couldn’t repress a little grin. 

“So you’re famous?” 

“No, alas. My work was stolen by my supposed colleagues.”

“Oh,” she said with a frown. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s what drove me away from Empire, the last straw in a long line of offenses,” he sighed. “I’m much too forgiving.”

“You used to work for Empire?” She was fascinated now.

“Indeed.”

“How’d you get out?”

“I left.”

“They let you?”

“No, but I managed anyhow.” He wagged a brow at her. “I went rogue after I removed my own chip. Been with these guys ever since, as there’s no way I coulda worked after my self-imposed retirement. They would’ve strung me up by my ankles.” 

“And now you outfit the Resistance.” A newfound respect was in her eyes. “And you’ll be the one installing my oculus?” 

“That’s me,” he said cheerfully. “Is there anything else you want to know, dear?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Actually, the girl was bursting with questions-- if the augs that caused massive shifts in the brain were illegal, why did people still end up with cyberpsychosis? Why didn’t  _ he _ have it? Or, did he have it and she just couldn’t tell? But she felt it rude to bombard him, and question his sanity on top of that. “Not right now.” 

“Well, you’re quite welcome to come back and visit. My office hours are posted on the cortex.” With that he spun back around in his chair, eyes back on the endless scroll of text across his myriad screens. “I’ve got to get back to work now, though.” 

“Okay. Thanks, Lobo.” She rose, taking in the room once more. There was a kaleidoscope of things to observe and her scavenger-sharp eyes wanted to see it all.

“Toodles!” His furious three-handed typing rang through the air, and he did not turn to wave her off. The door slid open, and Rey slid out.


	9. ROM fragment - 091828aby.vid

>uploading…

>key:

>password accepted

>this is a non-native file. are you sure you want to proceed?

>confirmed

>buffering…

>additional notes provided by Ph|2/\k+a|_

>note: These are from what’s left of Leia’s first cranial underlay. We lost most of the data, but saved a few files. This augmentation was done before we found out about the permanent transference. She gave up these memories forever, to show them to you. You are their keeper now. 

>recorded [date redacted]

>Under a tangle of vines growing on a patio sits a very young child with a mop of dark hair. He is ‘flying’ a model aircraft, a Corellian freighter, moving it through the air in his small hand and making sound effects. Approaching the door, I plan to surprise him. Or try to. 

>He turns and laughs at me. He always knows I’m coming. More and more signs he is like his uncle and I, like his grandfather. I am both proud and afraid. Psions are never safe. 

>end recording

>note: I’m sure you noticed that Ben’s face is glitched out. That’s his boss’ doing. The records of Ben have been corrupted-- all of them. I’ll be trying to work out how they did it ‘till I’m dead, I think. The technology just isn’t there yet! Either they have a hacknician who’s truly a savant, or something else is at work. I’ve ruled out psionics, due to its lack of effect on tech. But I’m still looking.

>recorded [date redacted]

>Ben is in his room. He looks very sad. He doesn’t know I can see him, that I’m looking around through the half-open door just barely. He sighs.

> _Why won’t he stay here with us?_

>He’s throwing a little ball at the wall, catching it as it bounces back. The movement is embedded in his muscle memory, a calming tool. His latest project, a new motherboard for his uncle, sits neglected on his desk. My heart sinks-- I can almost feel it getting heavier, tight in my chest. [note: Leia has asked me to add the following. “Han hadn’t been home much. I missed him too, but I was almost relieved at the same time. He was always worried about his son being a psion, and he’s overprotective. Still not wedded to the LAN, either. He said we already jacked one monopoly. But it’s his son’s generation that will have to survive the next one, if we don’t stop it.] Ben suddenly throws the ball too too hard, and it ricochets away, rolling underneath something.

> _I hate him._

>My heart almost stops. I know, I know. Teenage angst and melodrama. But the words are still searing, and I still feel the fear wrap itself around my stomach. I decide to leave him alone to have his feelings. I know he doesn’t really hate his father, but I can’t blame him for being angry.

>end recording

>note: Take note of the way he moves, since you cannot see his face. That anger, she says, is what drives him even now. It might add to his psionic abilities, or it might not, but it certainly influences how he uses them. We don’t know where the lessons he was taught have hidden themselves in his mind, but I can guarantee they are still there along with whatever bile Snoke’s feeding him. This you must come to see in action. It’s the best way to exploit him, get him in a compromising position. A valuable tool for your objective. 

>save to ROM?

>file saved


	10. anticipated

Under the eave of a massive parking garage on the outskirts of Ryloth, Rey stood with her slender body pressed against the wall. The rain that fell in this part of the outer rim was toxic, the purifying nanofog spread thin this far from the core cities. Outside the bubble, the rain would corrode everything from metal to flesh. On the rim, it would irritate the skin for days; overexposure would often trigger psoriasis and eczema, lead to hair loss, interfere with certain cybernetics, and even accelerate macular degeneration. She had an umbrella, of course, but she didn’t want to be obvious. During the rainy spells, everything slowed to a crawl.

Her mind wandered-- kept wandering-- back to her accidental intrusion on Finn and Poe several nights before. Partly because she wished acutely that they were with her on this mission. Mostly because it made her whole groin ache. Lonely thing, she knew only that touch almost always led to pain. To witness it cause such undeniable pleasure, administered and received with such doting enthusiasm, caused her body to hunger in ways she was unfamiliar with. 

Just as she nearly forgot herself, her eyescreen lit up. _Maker, finally._

**You here, little mouse?**

Who had chosen that fucking username?

“Spectre?” she said quietly, pressing the button on her comm.

**You’re gonna have to come inside.**

“That’s not in the programming.”

**Yeah, but I can’t bring this to you in the fucking rain, can I?**

She rolled her eyes, glaring up at the sallow brown clouds. She was parked on the exterior level, of course. It was cheaper.

“Where?”

**Dagoba, left seven, night.**

She barely knew basic code, had only begun to grasp the Resistance code, and now she was acutely aware of the minimal deepnet code she’d learned specifically to do this mission. Why the fuck was Poe on a run today? Couldn’t it wait?

“Right.” She looked into the heavy square maw she was meant to enter. Her eyescreen helpfully switched to infrared. Which for the moment was useless, because there were no warm bodies on this level. Just cold steel shells; repulsorlift ground shuttles awaiting their chance to hum to life. 

But she was no stranger to being swallowed by darkness, slipping in on silent feet. Being a psion was the only reason she, with nearly no equipment and none of it new when she did have it, had been able to pilfer some of the finest parts out of the graveyard that lay just outside the bubble off the western perimeter of Jakku. Old empire airships, aircraft, and even ground shuttles were there, buried in sand, their outer husks brittle with rust while their innards kept parts good for salvage like pearls. Very few others were brave enough to cross out into the wasteland. Girls don’t get knife-sharp on cushions above the 20th floor.

So she made her way around the edges, through the labyrinthine guts of the concrete block up to floor D, row 3N, avoiding the yellowish blobs of warmth her eyescreen revealed along the way.

In the slant of putrid light from a tall slit of a window, a woman with designs cut into the side of her teal hair was leaning back against the concrete wall smoking a vaporizer. Its scent was strange and sticky-sweet to the desert girl, who was so used to salt in the corners of her eyes and lips.

“Alright, I’m here,” Rey growled as she approached the Spectre, as she was called. Deep blue eyes silvery with augs slid over to her.

“There’s the little mouse who left the house.” Despite her beauty and curious hair, Rey was very close to deciding she misliked this particular contact. 

“How d’ya plan to get this stuff down to my ship?” 

“I have help. You send the boost?” She raised an eyebrow. It was pierced twice; secretly, Rey was fascinated. Body modifications had always intrigued her.

“I am right now.” Tapping on her datapad, she sent the credits through the wire the deposit was made through and then slid it back into her pocket. Another thing she’d learned how to do just for this mission. 

“Nice.” Spectre looked away into the distance; she was reading the notification from her oculus. “Alright, done deal. You be sure ‘n tell Hot-Dameron he’s the only person I let pay me in credits. Arrpee! Get this little mouse her cheese, huh?” She beckoned behind her, and in the dull light Rey saw that her hand was cybernetic. 

“Please,” came a mechanical voice from the darkness beside her. Rey almost started, hand straying towards her blaster hilt. That instinct had grown up awfully quick. A droid, very tall and matte black, rose into the light. In his hand was an enormous case, shiny metal and conspicuously clean. “I’m not your errand-droid, Sera.”

“Wow, thanks for the doxx, asshole,” the woman-- Sera, apparently-- replied. So much for usernames. “Ignore the tin can. The programmer had a stick up his ass.” The droid cast flat eyes at her, face uncanny and expressionless and yet it was more than clear he was in a foul mood.

“Uh--”

“Where is your transport, meatsack?” The monotone he spoke in rendered his insult almost comedic. 

“RP-M3!” Sera glared at him. “You’re in rare form today!”

“This way,” Rey beckoned, feeling a strange little crawl up the back of her neck. Something was putting her off. It wasn’t the mouthy droid or his attractive and condescending partner. It wasn’t the breach of terms, caused by the rain that tapped ceaselessly on everything. She didn’t know what it was. Slinking through the tunnels, she decided to take a slightly different way back to the ground level. 

“Is this the scenic route?” the droid complained.

“Yes.” Rey’s brown eyes were extra laser-focused. 

“Let the mouse do what she’s gotta, Arrpee.” Spectre (Rey decided to endeavor to forget her real name, out of solidarity) brought up the rear, still pulling on her vaporizer. The smell clotted in the scavenger’s nose.

“Organics are phenomenally inefficient.”

“So? Doesn’t matter. We’re paid. Off the chip. Don’t be ungrateful.” Okay, this was more likable than her previous statements, Rey thought. She still wanted to tell the two of them to shut the hell up, though.

“Efficiency benefits her as well,” RP-M3 pointed out.

“You know all the inputs?”

“No, but--”

“Then be nice, or mute it.”

“Fine.” Even as he stopped speaking, the droid’s metallic steps rang off the walls. Rey liked to move silently; traversing a dark and enclosed space with loudwalkers was taking a shredder to her patience. _Closer now, closer, almost there--_

There was a sudden, terrible sound, the scream of a weapon she’d only heard of in stories throwing its reddish light around the second-to-last room from her exit. _Fuck!_ Cold terror wrapped itself around her spine. 

Two blaster shots; both her and Sera had reacted instantly. The glowing blade sent them harmlessly into the walls to sputter and fade. 

“Shit! It’s _him!_ ” Spectre kept firing, and a viscerally loud _clang_ rang in the gloom. 

“I suggest departure immediately,” RP-M3 said. The case had hit the ground, evidently dropped by the droid, and Rey’s eyes darted between it and the massive figure deflecting shot after shot. RP-M3 was shooting too, she realized, and one of his own blasts almost struck him as it was deflected.

“Fuck! You’re on your own, little mouse!” Spectre's last look at her was almost apologetic.

“Seriously?” But it was too late, her contacts were already retreating back the way they had come in a flurry of shots. She ducked as a deflected blast came straight for her head, dashing over to the case. Tried to haul it up by its handle, but it stayed stubbornly on the floor. The girl wasn’t weak, but holy fuck it was heavy. 

“Little mouse, hm?” A venomous, strange voice, mangled through the vocoder in the filtration helmet, issued from the advancing form that could only be Kylo Ren.

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” Her blasts were useless against the black thunderhead that advanced-- she had to leave the case and shuffle away. Ducking and rolling under a shuttle, she tried to put layers of steel between herself and the glowing blade.

“You have something of mine.” He was moving, she could feel his presence. She crept along behind a row of parked vehicles, staying low. Somehow, he wasn’t showing up on her infrared. 

“You don’t own the world!” Her voice bounced off the nearby cars, rattling through the air, shrill. 

“I hear your heartbeat, little mouse. Are you afraid?” 

_He’s toying with me. I have to get this case out of here before he gets tired of it._

“I know who you work for. Organa’s gotten awfully bold, these last few months. Pinching from _my_ suppliers.”

 _Fuck. I really can’t fucking lift it._ She paused behind a deluxe X24, slid her blaster back into its holster. Her skin crawled with him, but she had to do something. 

“And Skywalker.”

Rey froze. _How does he know about Luke?_

“He thinks to replace me with _you._ A scavenger. He’s a fool.”

She realized with a stone in her belly that there was much, much more for her to learn about Kylo Ren. 

Without warning, the hum of his blade came loud and close and then howled its way through the shuttle she’d taken cover under. Screaming, she leapt away and scrambled up towards the ramp that would lead her to the exit. She felt her body start to vibrate, felt her strength reach out through the air molecules around her. 

“Have you forgotten something, little mouse?” _Shit shit shit shit--_

The case came sailing through the air, around Ren and up past her, catapulting towards the exit and her Y-wing. _Oh thank the Maker, it must have a bio-lock!_ But the furious snarl from behind her sent adrenaline surging through her veins, and she took a full sprint after the case. She heard him slicing his way through half a dozen shuttles as he bounded closer and closer, on her heels, but she tried to leap sidelong out of the exit and tumbled over a car and--

 _Screamed_ as she felt the impossible sear of a plasma blade nick her back, pain blinding even as she pushed her legs forward anyway, pushed and pushed and pushed--

The muffled sound of Ren flying through the air away from her, his helmet-garbled shout of surprise, blade spitting as he ground to a halt--

But she was in the pilot’s seat, slamming every lever frantically, tears pouring down her face. The case was behind her, BB-8 was wailing urgently from his compartment, and the twin ion engines roared to life. Ryloth flew by in a blur and gave way to a plain of yellowed grass; the rain was almost but not quite gone. Throwing her hood over her head and screaming again with the pain of that effort, she slumped over in the seat. _Just get home..._

All was darkness.


	11. personal log 01

>loading…

>key:

>password accepted

>recorded [date redacted], 01 personal log

>i am here. i am here. i am here.

>recording ends


	12. outlet

Before Hux could turn around to answer the chime at his door, a red, furious needle pierced it and cut it open like butter. Massive sucking breaths roared out of the respirator helmet revealed by the weapon peeling metal like an orange away from the rest of Kylo Ren enough that he could push forward and stride right into the CFO’s living suite with his lightsaber still brandished.

“Ren! What the  _ fuck _ are you doing?!” He was standing in the kitchenette, a pan of onions on the range, a bottle of wine in his hand. Slamming it onto the black marble countertop, he took exactly two strides before the other man was not an inch away from him, glaring from behind his helmet which leaned down towards Hux’s face with acute malice.

“Why are you interfering with my business?” The vocoder turned his snarl into a ragged sound. 

“Your lack of communication,” barked the redhead, “and the lack of return of a certain shipment--”

“Did you not assume I was doing my job, Hux? MY job? The one you don’t get to do for me?” 

“I assumed you weren’t doing it well enough, Ren.” His pale face was pinched into a scowl which only barely faltered as a humming red blade sailed up to hover near his neck.

“Take that abomination off the requisition order.”

“Why should I? The more assets searching the sooner it can be found--”

“Take. It. Off. The. Order.” Now the blade strayed close enough Hux could feel its heat near his carotid artery. His body lit up with adrenaline, and he should’ve been afraid. Maybe he was. But he was stunningly alive, too.

“You don’t give me orders, Ren. If you’d just answered my fucking hail you wouldn’t have this to be upset about.” 

“I am not on-call for you!”

“This order was of special interest to Snoke, not me.” 

“What the fuck is so special about it?”

“Have you seen its contents?” At this, Kylo quivered in his broiling fury for a moment, but said nothing. Instead he swung his saber away from the pale invitation of Hux’s neck and spun on his heel to snarl at nothing. Armitage scowled, heart still banging in his chest, and turned to pick up his datapad off the nearby kitchen island. “Read it.”

Chest heaving, Kylo cut off his saber and tugged his respirator helmet off. There was that face that Hux couldn’t explain his attraction to. So asymmetrical, with a proud nose and full lips and eyes that burned. How it was so radiant with beauty despite its rough-hewn, unmodified state, his shallow little mind could not fathom. The helmet slammed onto a nearby end table--  _ Maker, he’ll break something else any moment-- _ and the saber hilt with it. Then a black-gloved hand snatched the datapad, black eyes roving it.

The moment of silence upon his comprehension spoke for itself. 

“Fuck,” Kylo said finally, a spit and a word made one.

“Precisely.” Hux crossed his arms. “No tracker. Whoever pinched it used our own policies against us. Either that, or the courier was an idiot of the worst kind, but that seems unlikely.” 

“Why  _ this _ shipment?” Kylo kept looking at the words on the screen.

“I don’t know. Black market augmentations, presumably.”

“That’s too easy. I’d have found it by now.” 

“Why don’t you just let the Slymicon do what it does best?” That dark scowl pointed itself at Hux when he said it. “I know you dislike them, but they were made for a purpose that lends itself to your problem.” 

“I like to solve my own problems. Not let those things do it for me.” Kylo dropped the datapad onto the nearby couch, then tugged off his uniform coat with its high utility collar. Beneath he was just in a black tank top and black trousers held up with suspenders. Sweat glistened on his immense, granite shoulders. Hux felt his guts jerk with desire.

“You worry too much.” He drew up close to the larger man. “And you wrecked my front door.”

“You have a foyer. Lock it, instead,” Kylo suggested.

“Why didn’t you answer my hail?” 

“I didn’t fucking feel like it,” he replied in a low growl full of his heat, his intoxicating energy, his scent. Hux would have called it a stench on anyone else. All his other lovers were so clean, so polished and perfected. But this man, he was a predator, a wild thing. Something Hux hated and desired. 

“Something happened at the gala, didn’t it? You vanished for a while.” Now Kylo’s eyes narrowed; he did not think Hux was ugly, by any means. But the thing that made fucking him such a pleasure was getting him dirty. Corrupting something so artificially pure. The heat he’d only begun to feel with the stranger in the red dress, though-- that was something different. Mutual, primal,  _ natural.  _ Beyond the redhead’s comprehension. 

“I was dealing with a potential security breach.” Ren’s hand slid up Hux’s neck. 

“You’ve been different since then.” 

True, he had not been as interested in the CFO. A well-crafted thing, who did not fight back, nor did he contribute much. Instead, he had imagined  _ her _ nails biting into his flesh, their bodies crushing together, the visceral need he knew he could not feel with someone like Hux. He closed his enormous hand around the lithe, elegant neck; breath hitched beneath his fingers in anticipation.

Kylo’s other hand wasted no time at Hux’s trousers, gripping the firm flesh beneath once they were opened. Pale eyelashes barely fluttered. He wanted to see them roll, wanted to break the mind beneath them. But certain cranial implants force lucidity, unless under extreme duress. These people, with their endless augmentations and enhancements. They fancied themselves their own little gods. Or at least Hux did.

Snarling, Ren moved him bodily by the throat down onto the floor till his porcelain ass was in the air, begging to be split. Hux groaned as his temple was pushed down into the kitchen tile, and the other man’s impressive length settled between his cheeks. Kylo issued a guttural sound between a growl and a purr.

This long, thin razor of a man was obsessed with beastial lust because he possessed none of it himself. He’d pruned it all away. Perhaps, with all this pent up energy, the psion could fuck it right back into him. Probably not, he thought, but he would enjoy trying.

“Are you saying you’ve missed me, Armitage?” 


	13. contact

The infirmary on the base was bleached pale, but still the color of the sand seemed to seep into the walls, insistent. Rey was happy to be leaving it; the reek of bacta-spray had lodged itself in her brain. She wanted to go back to her own damn bunk. 

“Hey, you alright?” Finn was breathing hard, he’d been in a hurry. “I just heard--”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Should you be leaving the infirmary?”

“I can’t fucking  _ sleep  _ in the infirmary.” Lately, she couldn’t much sleep anywhere, but still.

“At least let me help you out a little? Please?” He held out his arm. She looked from it to his face, so handsome and gentle. Rolling her eyes, she took it. Every part of her skin that touched his began to crackle. 

“Wish you two had been there,” Rey confessed as they kept walking. “At least one of you. I felt woefully under-prepared.”

“I don’t think it would’ve been easy if Ren was there, regardless,” Finn said.

“I mean before that! I know so little deep code. I felt like an idiot.”

“Hey, you got it done. And, you got it done even though that fucker showed up!” His big hand reached up to cover hers where it clung to his arm. She almost jumped, but managed to contain the urge.

“Yeah.” She did not want to talk about Kylo Ren right now, and what she didn’t yet know about him. She wanted Finn to keep touching her. That night, the orange light tracing the outline of his figure, those hands in Poe’s hair--

“Rey!” Think of the devil, and he’ll call your name. “Rey, what the hell happened? Kylo Ren--?”

“It’s fine, Hot-Dameron, it worked out.” She smirked at the pilot as he approached. He frowned at the nickname.

“If fuckin’ Spectre had anything to do with--”

“She split, and the droid that was with her. They didn’t wanna interface and I don’t blame them,” Rey explained with a sigh. Nevermind that they’d left the case on the ground for her to deal with. She hadn’t complained very much about that, yet.

“That was a dick move. She does that sometimes, dick moves,” Poe grumbled. “I’m sorry. Your back’s healing?” 

“What’s that thing he fights with?” she asked. “It’s healing, yeah, pretty quick, but it fucking hurt like nothing ever has.”

“It’s a lightsaber. A plasma weapon. Really old-school, but clearly that doesn't bother him,” Finn chimed in. He stroked the top of her hand and she felt her nerves crackle. Poe’s eyes darted down to where they touched, half a smirk coming over his expression. 

“So what are you two up to, then?” he asked, very casually.

“I just wanted to rest in my own bed.” Perhaps she could take Finn with her, she thought.

“You look like you could use a little TLC,” the pilot commented, raising a brow at them. Finn frowned at him, but then Rey leaned against the ex-corporate’s shoulder as they walked. 

“Maybe could,” she murmured. Weariness and curiosity were tugging at her at the same time. “I need some sleep.”

“Did you have trouble sleeping before this?” Finn asked her. Poe scampered around to the girl’s other side, putting a supportive hand on her shoulder.

“Always.” Now she was alight, flooded with-- something--

“Come sleep in our room, little mouse.” The pilot’s voice was gentle, reassuring. 

“Only if you want to--”

“Okay,” she cut Finn off quickly. Poe’s grin at his lover was a mile wide. “Shoulda known it was you who picked that username, flyboy,” she added. The grin fell.

“Hey, mice are cute and little and sneaky! I think it works.” Rey just laughed, and Finn smiled. 

\-----

Of course, that night nothing in particular happened except that the lonely desert girl slept in a bed with two gentle boys on either side of her, feeling more safe than she ever had in her life. Anything more rambunctious than that was relegated to her dreams. But they left her there in the morning, and she ended up sleeping the whole day away. 

“Finn?” she murmured, drawn slowly out of her prolonged slumber. He was there in front of her, on his back reading a datapad with his arm trailing down so she could cling to it while she dreamt. His deep brown eyes cut away from the screen, though, and he smiled at her. “Poe?” The warmth at her back stirred, and she realized the pilot’s arm was around her waist.

“Hey, little mouse,” said Poe, voice hoarse with sleep as it floated to her ear from the pillow behind her.

“You’ve been out for almost twenty hours,” Finn said.

“Maker.”

“You needed it.”

“Feelin’ better?” Poe asked, and she shifted to glance back at him. 

“Think so. No pain. Just, wow, that’s a long time.” Finn slid the datapad onto the bedside table and turned towards her, moving down to put his head on the pillow. Her wrists, pale beneath and dusty with sun on top, slid into his hands. He pressed his thumbs into her palms in a gentle caress. “Is it time to sleep again already? Shit.”

“It’s okay,” Finn assured her. “It’s a little too early for that. Why do you look so surprised?”

Did she? The way he was stroking her palms was vibrating up her arms. 

“You… you’re touching me.” That wasn’t the right thing to say--

“Should I stop?” He froze, and she felt Poe’s arm stiffen, too.

“No!” she said, almost too urgent. She shrank back into her shoulders bashfully. “I mean, no. It’s… I’m just not used to it yet.”

“But do you like it?” Poe asked, moving closer to her so he could lean up and see her face when she responded. Rey’s cheeks turned bright red.

“Um… well… yes. It’s really nice.” 

“You didn’t get to touch people much before, huh?” Finn’s hands were stroking her forearms now, sending tingles all over her.

“No.” She watched his hands move, watched herself get covered in gooseflesh for a moment. Then those quick amber eyes floated back up to him, wide and artless. 

“Any touch you don’t like,” Poe murmured, pressing his chest against her back, “you tell us, alright?” 

“O-okay.” The desert girl was overwhelmed, but she deeply did not mind. Finn slid closer to her, and she reached out to touch his face before she even thought about it. His smooth, dark skin was soft and beautiful against her calloused palm. He smiled when she did it. She felt Poe’s nose on the back of her neck, and shivered. “W-will you, um…”

“Anything,” sighed the ex-corporate. Her heart leapt into her throat. 

“Will you touch me… like you touched each other?” 

This was a welcome surprise. Over her shoulder, the two men locked eyes. Poe’s smirk was triumphant, but it was also excited.

Finn’s mouth was the first on hers, Poe’s hand sliding over her tummy under her shirt in its languid way that lit up her body and sent that ache right back into her groin. Just when she thought she’d drown in one pair of lips, another pair were on her neck. More hands slid all over her; she was too drunk on the flood of sensations to know or care whose hand was whose.

“You’re so beautiful,” Finn murmured, enthralled by how heavy her eyelids were, by her freckles which extended across her shoulders as well as her nose, the way her hair was so lush and soft out of its buns. He realized she was tugging at his shirt, her fingertips touching his chest. She was slowly turning onto her back, Poe rising onto an elbow to put his hand in her hair.

“He’s right.” The pilot’s eyes roved over her, surveying. His other hand reached out to stroke his lover’s arm. “I knew he had good taste.” 

“Shut up,” chuckled Finn, pushing back playfully. Rey’s hands were one on each of the boys, pushing clothes away from skin. 

“Can I touch you, too?” she breathed.

“Of course you can.” Now Poe’s lips took hers, and her hand fumbled while Finn slipped his shirt off. She lost track again of who was doing what, trails of sensation lighting up all over as they touched her, slipped her shirt off to join their clothes on the floor. Soon two bodies, once furtively glimpsed, were pressed against hers and she was breathless with the awe of skin-to-skin contact. 

“Oh, boys,” she sighed, watching the two of them kiss each other with growing intensity. “I’m-- you’re so incredible--” 

When one hand slipped down between her legs, she gasped with pleasure and shock, and knew she was lost to her body until Finn and Poe saw fit to let it rest.


	14. ROM fragment - 072326aby.vid

>uploading…

>key:

>password accepted

>this is a non-native file. are you sure you want to proceed?

>confirmed

>buffering…

>additional notes provided by Ph|2/\k+a|_

>note: I believe this memory speaks for itself.

>recorded [date redacted]

>Ben approaches me with a datapad in his tiny hands. They look wet, too.

> _Mom, will you read me a bedtime story?_

>Let me see that.

>Yep, the pad is sticky. Great.

>What did you get all over it?

>He only pouts.

>Go wash your hands and I’ll read to you. 

>He turns, excited, and fairly runs to the refresher. I wipe the datapad with a wet cloth and sigh. We retire to his room-- turn the comm on, just in case-- and I let him get comfy in bed and sit down beside him. 

>Once, in a swamp called Dagoba, there lived a wise old man. He’d lived hundreds of years, and time had worn him into a little hunched lump and grown hair that stuck out of his ears.

>Ben giggles.

>He slept in a little hollowed-out rock, ate what the swamp provided, and sought to become at peace with himself. His past was so long, stretched so far back, that his memories would come upon him by surprise when some little thing reminded him. Not all of them were nice memories, though. He would pause and sigh, or shake his bald head. One day, he thought, I will make up for the bad things I’ve done. For all the things I have failed to do. 

>Now Ben is rapt, staring, watching the images in his mind.

>For you see, this wise old man had traveled far. Once he had been a great leader, a powerful warrior, a gatherer of knowledge. He had trained many to be like him, taught them about magic and the path to inner peace. For he knew that the world would have war regardless, and creating peace within was the best way to handle the turmoil without. But during the wars of his own lifetime, sometimes the old man had not prepared well enough. Sometimes he had lost his pupils to violence or persuasion, sometimes power and greed swallowed them up. He had not been able to save them, and he regretted it each time he remembered. 

> _Mom, why’d he do that?_

>Hang on, we’re about to find out. The old man spent his days wondering how best to atone for his failures, forgetting the pupils who had succeeded and the protection he’d provided and the knowledge he had made available to others. He thought back on each dark memory as it arose, seeking the common thread in his behaviors. One day, though, a stranger came to Dagoba. 

> _Who?_

>Ben. 

> _Sorry._

>It’s alright. Now, where was I? Ah. The stranger was looking for a wise old man, to learn the things nobody else taught. For he too was powerful, but he needed someone to show him the way to use his magic. The old man thought his visitor was arrogant, impatient, and looked too much to the future or the past. But he agreed to train him anyway. Very soon, he realized that his new student was not a stranger at all. He was the son of one of the wise man’s many pupils years before, one who he believed he’d failed most of all.

> _Uh oh!_

>This pupil had been lost to fear and greed, and now his son wanted to learn those same powers. So the old man tried to teach his new student patience, and humility, and how to be present in each moment. He tried to impress upon him the importance of inner peace, to be sure he used his powers wisely. He tried to train him perfectly, so he would not be like his father. But the student received a distressing vision that his friends were in trouble, and fled Dagoba in terror to prevent that vision from coming true. It was in that moment that the wise old man realized his mistake, the mistake he had always made. 

>Ben is silent, wide-eyed.

>He realized that trying to control his pupils’ paths, pressuring them not to make mistakes and to avoid their fear, was what had caused many of them to seek power and become greedy, and even to die. Because fear that we try to avoid or hide finds us in very sneaky ways, and the wise old man’s fear of losing his students had caused him to try to control them too much, to prevent them from failing. He could not prevent the future, and many failed anyway, much worse than they might have otherwise. But it was too late to help his new student.

> _What happened to the student?_

>He could not prevent the future, either. Eventually after much trouble he returned to Dagoba to seek his master’s wisdom again. But now the wise old man was dying. The pupil was very sad to learn this, but as his master passed his body vanished!

> _Really?_

>Yes, and the pupil didn’t know what to do. But then he saw his master’s ghost appear!

> _Wow!_

>And the ghost said to his student, you have failed. But you are not lost. Now you must learn from your failures; seek humility, patience, and inner peace in your own way. I cannot control you anymore. Failure must be your teacher now. And then the pupil went on to become the most powerful and successful student the master had ever had.

> _How’d he do THAT?_

>That’s another part of the story, for another time, Ben. It can be your next bedtime story. 

> _Awwww._

>What did the old man teach that the pupil had to learn?

>Ben rolls his eyes. 

> _Patience._

>Exactly right. I knew you were smart. Now, go to sleep. 

> _Okay. Goodnight, mom._

>Goodnight, Ben. 

>I get up to turn off the light and give his forehead a kiss. He curls up around his pillow. Before I leave the room, I take a last look at him. He reminds me of his father very much, sometimes. I whisper at the doorway. 

>I love you.

>end recording

>save to ROM?

>file saved


	15. escape

Kylo had been in the observation room for nearly the entire gala so far. It was the first one since he’d met the girl in the red dress, and he was equal parts surly and hopeful. Harried eyes flitted from one screen to another inside his panopticon, ravenous for what he’d barely begun to know.

This was his job too, he told himself. Watching from the eye in the sky, rather than among the crush of jackals and roaches. Small talk was not his strong suit, and nothing these guests had ever said to him was heavy enough to stay in his memory. Except her.

_ Agony. _

He was watching for red, which he knew was a mistake-- she might not be in red, this time. He was also passively watching for things that seemed unusual, people in places they didn’t belong. Would it be easier to spot such things from within the breathing belly of the silicone dollhouse? Certainly, but the way his teeth ground together kept him rooted to the spot. He was so intent on the screens that he almost jumped when the door opened.

“Ah, here you are.” Kylo gently removed his finger from the activation trigger on his light saber as he heard Hux’s voice. “I thought you might be lurking.”

“Did you come here for a reason?” At this, Hux nearly pouted.

“Have you ever known me to not have a reason for anything I do?” But the taller man just stared at him. “I came here because I wanted to know where you were, as I usually see you prowling during these things. There’s about to be a change in programming.” 

“What kind of change?” 

“I’m bringing in something of a treat for the guests.” His face, pinched as it was, did not hide a smug little grin.

“Which is?” 

“It’s a surprise, but it’s in a display tank. A large one. They’ll be quite fascinated, and perhaps educated. Either way, I didn’t want you to fret and lock the place down when you weren’t expecting it.” 

Kylo watched the way Hux’s lips moved while he spoke. They were almost too smooth, too symmetrical around the words that came out of them. He thought of another pair of lips, much less designed. Irritation clawed at his mind, fueled by the constant influx of self-obsessed drivel he had to push away as it trickled from Hux’s mind.

“Thanks for the warning.” Back to combing the monitors, he decided to pretend that Hux was no longer there. Whatever this spectacle was, he was much too pleased with himself for having set it up. 

“You’re welcome,” said Hux very crisply, detecting that he was deeply unwelcome. Then he turned on his heel and exited the room, leaving his moody COO to brood.

A flash of red-- no. It was only a sash around a Corellian investor’s waist. Kylo’s fist clenched. The time seemed to crawl while he stood, remembering her face. Remembering how suddenly she had left, the taste of her mouth, her hands on his chest.

He supposed she had given him something to miss, after all. 

\-----

Biology still had its hold on Kylo in ways that other, augmented people struggled less with. All these thoughts of what could have been, what he’d craved so suddenly the last time he’d been working a gala, were straining his sense of control after two hours alone with them. He leaned back in the office chair of the observation room, tucked into shadow with his eyes still on the monitors and one hand over the bulge in his pants.

It seemed ridiculous, to jerk off in such a place. It seemed ridiculous to want to, even. But her smooth skin under his hand, the curve of her back, her bright eyes, her wildness--

His fly was open, one of his heavy hands wrapping slowly around his cock. Eyes still on the screens. If he missed her because he was masturbating like a fucking fourteen year old, he would never forgive himself. Twirling a finger around under the tip for a moment, he let out a low growl and began to stroke. Her voice whispered in his ear. 

_ I’ll give you something to miss. _

By the time a hulking creature was rolled into the ballroom inside a bacta-tank, his breaths were coming hard and his hand was  _ slap slap slap slap _ ping its desperate grip on his cock, pushing him close to orgasm. But upon seeing that thing, he froze.

“What the fuck?” He leaned forward, raging erection forgotten. Whatever it was, it was conscious, he realized. Spinning in slow-motion in the fluid suspension, it looked like a large humanoid, but it had no skin. The terrifying blue of its muscles laced with yellow veins and its featureless face made it look truly monstrous. No eyes or nose, only a mouth with otherwise human teeth wrapped in blue muscle tissue. He could hear faint screams from some of the guests, and the shocked rumble of the rest rising behind them. 

Hux was waving them down, hushing their tittering as he led the tank on its repulsorlift platform through the massive white marble hall. Kylo slammed a button to turn on the sound for the ballroom camera.

_ “--need to panic, ladies and gentlefolk, please.” _

_ “It’s a monster!” _

_ “No no, it is no monster. It is one of the many pinnacles of First Order, LLC’s technical innovation, only in its more… primordial state.”  _

Staring at the screen, Kylo blinked. Watching how it moved, how it pressed its hand against the transparisteel. If it had had eyes, they would have been boring holes in its audience. The fear from it was palpable even through the screen-- and the anger. A caged creature that should not have existed. 

_ “What is it?” _

_ “It’s called a Slymicon.” _ Hux was even more smug now. The crowd tittered, realization dawning on them. With its skin on, it might’ve been recognized by anyone who had ever been involved in First Order's more clandestine enforcement protocol. 

_ “Why does it look like that?” _

_ “Slymicons are grown. Biogenetically engineered to proficiency in various tasks. One they reach full physical development, we train them to have total muscle control and obedience to their handlers. They are strong, quick, and intelligent. They’ve been used to track and protect First Order product, as well as defend high-security areas.”  _

_ “You forgot the skin, Armitage!”  _ One of Hux’s pets, a girl with blonde hair slicked down over her head and alight with subcutaneous implants where her skin wasn’t covered by her stiff white gown, was laughing. 

_ “Skin is the most difficult organ to reproduce via biogenetics.” _ Hux was too pleased with himself to take offense at her teasing.  _ “Ergo, we use silica for the skins. But, as you all know, silica is expensive--”  _ a chorus of chuckles--  _ “and so we do not skin them until they’ve completed their conditioning process.”  _

_ “So this one’s not done, then?” _

_ “This one,”  _ Hux replied, and glanced at the creature. Despite its apparent lack of eyes, the Slymi’s head turned to look at the ginger.  _ “Has failed its conditioning check.”  _

Voices _ooh_ ed and _ahh_ ed, and the faceless thing’s anger grew pointed. 

_ “What happens to it now?”  _

_ “It is recycled, its cells used to continue our research.”  _ Of course. This was a promo. A little tease of what was in the works. Kylo stood up to glare into the screen, disgusted. 

These abominations could feel in the most basic way, like dogs but a little more clever, he knew. He could sense their impulsive reactions, trained into them so that they focused only on their tasks. They were incomplete, husks of their potential, and unable to ever become people in a true sense. He hated them because they were so utterly crafted, and might have hated them more if they were more human. It was one thing to work on biotech replacements for limbs, or broken or damaged organs. To help people who already existed.  _ Who need it, _ whispered something small that he pushed back and away from his thoughts. But Snoke wasn’t interested in his COO’s opinions about his precious assassin-monsters, he’d made that abundantly clear. 

Kylo had stopped listening to Hux blather on. Instead he righted his trousers and shirt, disappointed that he hadn’t even finished before this nonsense got started. 

It was the screams that caught his attention first. When he turned back to the monitor in question, he heard an enormous, wet crash and watched the mass of blue muscle heave itself out of the freshly shattered bacta-tank. The ooze was everywhere, guests were fleeing-- Hux was nowhere to be seen. The Slymi struggled to move at first, unsteady on its feet, and a blaster shot from a security droid entered the screen only to sting the thing and piss it off. It snarled, and its claws emerged. 

By the time it had swiped through the guts of the first guest, Kylo was bolting down the gray hallways with his saber hilt in hand.


	16. transcript - log 11.98

>//server/LAN/system/library/target/kylo/data/history/file:oDAT56xABY.vid

>recorded [date redacted], 11.98 Poe Dameron

>transcribed by  Ph|2/\k+a|_

>buffering…

>key:

>password accepted

>notes: You’ll have to forgive this young man. He’s still very hot-tempered, still very angry. I don’t blame him but it can be tiresome. And he's unlikely to give details, but I think your empathy algorithm will inform you of plenty. This is our clearest glimpse into what Ren is like when… well. You’ll understand. 

>transcription begins

>This thing on? Oh, alright. Uh, hi, I’m Poe…

>he looks to the side

>Why didn’t ya say so, chiphead? Jeez. Alright. Any-fuckin’-way, my only experience with Kylo Ren face to face was this one time, when I was on a run, he jacked me. I don’t know how, maybe I was just in the wrong IP at the wrong time. I didn’t even know that fucker operated in VR. 

>he scratches his head

>So there he was. There I was, torrenting some clearly illegal content. It was for us, actually, for the Resistance. Some info Lobo here needed, I didn’t ask. I never ask. It was s’posed to be easy. But he was there-- he even has that dumb fuckin’ helmet on in VR, can you believe that? It was my own fault. I got comfy, wasn’t paying enough attention. 

>he sighs

>Being tortured in VR is just as bad as being tortured in the flesh. Maybe worse, ‘cuz they can fuck with your mind way more. Ren’s special, though, he can fuck with your mind in ways you never thought possible. Even without the psionic stuff. 

>he pauses

>I don’t wanna get into the gory details. 

>he pauses 

>But he fucked me up good. And I think the thing I felt most was that he was so fuckin’ hellbent. He was gonna get this info I didn’t have outta me, or kill me trying. Property is property even in VR, he said. Moving his soft product for him was bad enough, he said, but stealing something classified was an offense that everyone who helped me would have to suffer consequences for. It didn’t take him long to figure out that I was with the LAN, so. Yeah. That pissed him off.

>he rubs his forehead

>I only know so much about Ben Solo, okay? So don’t ask me for none of that. I just know that whatever happened here, he’s still fucking furious. He showed me a hundred glimpses into my past that I did not want to see. Voss says I was glued to that chair for three days and she couldn’t get me out, the channels were too gummy. She didn’t wanna leave half my brain in VR. Which I’ve seen what that does to a person, so despite the torture I’m grateful. But Kylo, he wanted to hurt me and everyone here by proxy. He didn’t care if my dad hit me, when his just wasn’t around. He didn’t care that my mom left, and his mom still wants him to come back-- or, she used to. I guess this whole project kinda means she’s given up, don’t it?

>he looks to the side

>Sorry, Lobo. So he threw a lot of my own shit back at me, but I really didn’t know what was in the torrent. He dug around for a long time. Luckily that was before we even had a base, nobody was easy to find, so he got nothing. And it was one of his own that saved me. Accidentally.

>he smiles

>Finn was the distraction that got Ren yanked outta VR by his boss, and that’s when Voss got me out. I know he had to be so pissed. But I made it. And I hope to the Maker I don’t ever get stuck in VR with him again. I hope nobody does.

>transcription ends


	17. control

Luke’s lab was gathering dust in much more than the corners. All around it lay the pieces and parts of his past endeavors, countless ventures into seeking the way to pull technology into the fold of psionic influence. But now he spent most of his time at his desk, or out on his stoop. 

The night on Nar Shaddaa was soaked in yellow light, like a sallow sister of Jakku’s orange dust. But the city was massive, crawling with life. Rey was less fond of Coruscant, being more at home in the grimy lower levels of Hutt territory. This place did not pretend to be a jewel; it was a particular filth all its own. She thought maybe that was why Luke chose it to roost in-- here it wasn’t easy to cover the mess of being alive with a plastic and steel veneer.

Sitting on the stoop, she surveyed the network of buildings and tunnels above and below. Beside her in his own chair, Luke was smoking a vaporizer. Whatever was in his, it stank much less than the Spectre’s. 

“You coulda told me right off the bat, yanno,” the old man chastised her gently. “I knew soon as I met ya, of course. But I reckon you were scared for good reason, and maybe I was being a coward.” 

“I’d never met someone else like me. Just heard stories. They were all bad.” She eyed him, her nervous system still alive with those stories. But this was Luke, whom everyone loved so dearly.

“Some of those stories are true.” 

“Not of you, right?” He chuckled humorlessly at the worry that was plain in her question. 

“I created Kylo Ren. That’s the worst story about me.”

“Ben Solo created Kylo Ren,” Rey insisted, frowning. “You did everything you could.” 

“The problem with psions is we all try to play Maker at some point. The Jedi did it. My grandfather did it. I did it. Kylo’s still doing it. You’re gonna do it, too. How am I supposed to know you won’t end up like him, or worse?” 

“If I did, it still wouldn’t be your fault.” 

“What about Snoke? Didn’t he have some hand in making Kylo Ren?”

“No.” She was scowling. “Kylo made himself. Snoke just tipped the scales in his own favor, pretended to give Kylo something he wanted.”

“You sound so sure,” Luke hummed. “I heard you met his light saber, too.” 

“Yeah.” The muscle in her back twinged at the memory.

“It’s an old weapon. Back in the days of the Jedi, they thought it was more elegant than blasters. Nevermind they just deflected blaster fire back, which is damn nearly the same thing.” He let a thick trail of vapor wander listless out of his nose.

“You have one too, don’t you?”

“I do.” 

“How does it work?”

Now he looked at her again, gray old eyes debating with themselves.  _ What does this desert girl mean for us? _ But he thought of Ben, and his steel sister Leia, and sighed. 

“There is a piece of organic matter inside them, just like in most any droid or piece of equipment. But instead of simply being affected by the Force, this is a stone that channels its power. We still don’t know how,” he explained. Rey’s eyes were wide. 

“How does it make a blade?”

“That’s plasma tech, an amplifier. The amplifier responds to the gem, but not to direct manipulation by a psion. So the gem is the key, but that still makes a saber the only piece of technology that can be affected by the Force.” He sighed. “That’s why we cling to them, I think. Maybe why he still uses one. The Force is incredibly strong in my family, and he wanted to be strong.”

“Why did nobody tell me that he was your apprentice?” she asked, with all the bluntness and uncertainty of a child. Troubled amber eyes looked at him from under a furrowed brow.

“Very few people know that he’s Leia’s son. Even in the LAN.”

“But you took me on, Luke. You should’ve told me.”

“I know.” He looked at his feet. “I’m sorry I didn’t. I guess I was hoping someone else would break that news to you. People get skittish when they learn about our connections to First Order and Empire, they act like it’s a wire that can never get cut. Even though Kylo tried to cut them to shreds.” 

“You cut them too, right?” 

The way he looked up at her, with eyes like outstretched hands pleading for forgiveness, made his reply clearer than his words would. 

“I didn’t want to.” 

“Maybe he can return,” she murmured. The grief in the old man’s face was so similar to Leia’s, and every time she saw it she wanted to believe. If only for their sakes.

“Maybe.” Luke looked away from her now, but he did not sound convinced. “Do you want your first lesson?”

“Uh, sure.” She raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Close your eyes.” 

Yellow light gave way to the darkness inside her skin. The loudest sound was her own breath, but the world around her tugged at her remaining senses. The city had its own heartbeat, and she could keep time with it. The endless babble of internal monologue from everyone around her was its own white noise, one that always got worse when she was trying to sleep, even back home where almost nobody was. 

“What do you see?” 

“Um, with my eyes closed?”

“Yes, with your eyes closed!” Luke snapped. 

“I see darkness.” But then, something inside her was moving. Sinking into the everything, listening to the drum of the planet faintly as it moved through in glitches all around her. It should have been a huge symphony, but it was scratchy, and parts were missing. Where technology had put too much static in the Force. But there was still a flow, still pockets of light and darkness everywhere. “I see… everything beneath. The things that echo everywhere despite the tech. Life, death. Decay, growth. Peace, violence. Everywhere… a balance.” 

“That’s right.” Luke was looking out into the air traffic again, not at the girl who tried so hard to learn to hold the world between her teeth. “The Force is everywhere. It’s much bigger than you or I. To try to control it is hubris of the worst kind, a vanity that will eat you alive. This is your first lesson, because it should have been Ben’s.” 

Her eyes slid over to him, and Rey felt the gravity of Luke’s words like lead in her bones. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, i hope everyone's weathering quarantine okay. this fic is eating my brain so i guess for me the silver lining is that i have time to write it. so far i'm happy with where it's going, but these overlapping timelines are an interesting challenge xD
> 
> be well and safe, y'all.


	18. education

The first time Jupiter took a life, it was not what she had expected. 

She knew that people died. She knew that people killed. She knew that there were emotional algorithms that operated every single time, and that humans just acclimated. Grew numb, or changed the variable by conceiving of their target as non-human somehow. It was the only way to avoid empathic overload. 

In all fairness to her, she was not human. 

She stood, breathing heavily as she looked at the strange body-- her victim was not human, either, not strictly. Almost nine feet tall, covered in a skin that was nearly translucent, and too blue beneath that skin to look human-like. The black jumpsuit it wore was a flimsy cover for its bulk, the visor that covered its eyes a dark screen over intimacy. It was bolted to the thing’s skull.

“Shit,” murmured Anarawd from a few feet away, pushing himself off the wall he’d been thrown against a few moments before. His Amban rifle was still in his hands, clutched with steel fingers. “You fuckin’ got a Slymi.”

She looked away from the steaming corpse-- human it was not, but flesh it had, and its black blood was everywhere-- and at her companion. His face was broad and pleasant, scruffy with a cleft chin. Handsome, she thought. That’s the word they would use. 

“What’s a Slymi?” But he was reaching out, grabbing her arm and tugging her away.

“We gotta go, now.” He’d managed to pull her behind a nearby freight container before a horrible, wet sound struck both their ears. Smoking blackish hunks of singed blue flesh flew past their shelter like gruesome confetti, shreds of muscle shot through with yellow veins and white ligaments. 

“Was that--”

“Yeah, they got a self-destruct protocol. Which is to say, when ya get ‘em, they explode.” He lowered the muzzle of the big rifle, shoulders sagging a little under his scarf and massive leather coat. 

“Oh.” She looked down at her hands, which were grimy to say the least. Perfectly smooth skin glazed with black blood, and it was on her sleeves too. It stank. But she felt no surge of the empathy algorithm, no impulse to behave as though she was unsure of her choice, or at least behave as though she were covering up such an uncertainty. 

“That’s… you sure you need me, kid? Lobo was pretty dead set, but shit. You just handled that fucker in relatively short order.” He peeked around the edge of the container only to make a face and turn right back around. 

“You showed me how to use the weapons.” Jupiter had already slid her blaster back into its holster at her hip, and her fell little laser-edge knife back into its hiding place in her left boot. “I need to learn a great deal more, I think. Not just about the weapons, though. About how to fight.” 

“Alright, whatever you say,” Anarawd shrugged. “How d’ya plan on fightin’?”

“However one gets into one’s enemy’s head.” She raised an eyebrow at him. The words still felt strange on her silicone tongue. “I may be at very close quarters. There may be no blasters, even very few weapons at all.”

“Ya know I’m a Mandalorian, right? Weapons are part of my religion.” He smirked at her, shaking his head. “I’m armed to the tits wherever I go, and that’s my best piece of advice.” 

“Lobo trusted you not to hide under your big gun.” At that he scowled at her a little, but even the scowl was handsome. She was beginning to get a feeling for that word.

“He tell you that?”

“Yes.” 

“Fucker.” The tall man huffed and spat on the ground beside him. “He tell you what I do for work?”

“You move soft product through VR.” 

“That’s all he told you?”

“Pretty much.” She stood almost too still, he thought. But her chest moved like she was breathing under her vest. Maybe it was an aug that kept her so poised, like a sewer snake eyeing a womp rat. His eyes flitted away as his oculus sent him up a couple of notifications. 

“I move soft product through VR, yeah.” Without warning he turned on his grav-booted heel and sauntered off. “C’mon, kid, let’s get a drink.” 

Jupiter watched him for a moment through her eyescreen, and followed. 

\-----

The booth was like an orb of teal light in a dark soup of thick air, vaporizer smoke clinging to the nostrils everywhere. The Mandalorian was on his seventh beer, and he belched indelicately as his eyes lolled about trying to follow the bodies of the servers and other bargoers like bereft puppies begging for scraps.

“Thing is, kid, I can’t-- ‘scuse me-- I can’t teach you what I do. We don’t share trade secrets in my, uh, trade. That’s the way.” Unable to catch any gazes, he looked back at Jupiter. She looked unbelievably natural, he thought. Hazel eyes with pupils so black they drank everything in, delicate bone structure just slightly asymmetrical in places he only spotted because his eyes were trained to notice those kinds of details, when he bothered to look at all. Most people were more… edited, he thought, and Lobo was the preeminent editor. 

“So why’d you agree to train me, then?” she replied, raising a brow at him. She seemed neither angry nor upset.

“‘Cuz I owe Lobo a favor. Several favors.” He frowned at his glass, which was half empty. “But I can’t be transgressin’ against my people. They wouldn’t take kindly to it. Ain’t you gonna have your drink?” A hand waved towards the untouched beer in front of the girl. 

“I told you, Anarawd, I don’t drink. I don’t have a filtration aug yet.”

“I don’t got one either, you don’t see me holdin’ out.” 

“I’m not having one.”

“Well, lemme have it, then.” He’d already scooped it up and dragged it over to himself, holding it close to his chest with his hand wrapped around it. “And you can just call me AT. Everybody else does.”

“Fine, AT. But you have to show me something. I don’t think Lobo will consider tonight’s outing enough of an education. You never answered my question, anyway.” She put her elbows on the table and threw him a little smirk. Her expressions were weird, he thought. Sometimes she was clearly giving a look, and sometimes she didn’t seem to have any look on her face at all.  _ Where’d Lobo find this kid? And why can’t I figure out what augs she has? _

“Which question?” he asked into the maw of his beer before he tucked half the remaining liquid behind his tongue. 

“What’s a Slymi?” 

“Mmmmm.” He slammed the glass onto the table. “ _ That _ question. They belong to First Order, LLC. They’re basically biogenetical monsters, and their whole purpose is to track down and fuck up people who steal from FO. Or who don’t agree to partner with them. Or literally whatever else old man Snoke wants them to do.” 

“Biogenetical? You mean biogenetically engineered?”

“Yah, s’what I said, that. AKA grown in labs.”

“But they’re not synthetic?” Now she was interested.

“They’re biological. They’re synthetic-but-not. They’re made out of organic matter that got grown, we think. Unless that old prick is morphing actual people into assassin monsters somehow.” Jupiter’s brow was furrowed, the first expression on her face that had not seemed to be for his benefit all night. He was good at reading faces, after all. 

“Interesting.”

“Disgusting, is what it is.” 

“Why was that one here in Corellia?” Now it was his turn to furrow a brow.

“Fuck. I dunno.” He gazed off into nowhere, and just when Jupiter thought he might be pondering some more useful answer, he grinned. A server was approaching the table, big smile on her painted blue lips. “Sweetheart, couldja do me the greatest, kindest favor ‘n get me another beer?” 

“Sure thing, sexy,” she replied, then turned her heavily lashed eyes on the girl. “You need anything, hun?”

“No, that’s alright. I’m driving.” The server winked knowingly in response before she slid off towards the tap bar, waving her fingers at Anarawd.

“I can handle myself,” he insisted, looking back at his companion. “I  _ can. _ ” 

“Mhm. I’m sure. But tonight, I’m handling the driving.” 

“We really gotta go all the fuckin’ way back to Jakku tonight?” He rolled his eyes, leaning on his elbows. “I’d rather meet someone nice, take ‘em back to, I dunno, a hotel or somethin’--”

“I told Lobo we’d be back, and you know he doesn’t sleep much. So drink up, before I decide I’m bored of watching you drink.” She was smirking at him again. Okay, well, he kinda liked the smirk. It reminded him of someone else.

“So, you know Leia?” Now the beer he’d taken from her was half-gone, too.

“I do. She’s an imposing woman,” Jupiter replied, leaning back in the booth.

“She really is. Don’t take no shit. I guess I wouldn’t either, all she’s been through.”

“Yeah.” Now she wasn’t sure how much she should divulge, since her entire objective was classified. 

“I mean, when Empire took out Aldaraan, that was some fucked up shit. In general. Much less for her, with her parents there and everything. She’s been a machine since then. Her husband still around?” He canted his head, swirling the beer inside his glass.

“Not often, no.” Han Solo, she had never met. 

“Yeah, didn’t think so. He’s like me. Can’t sit still too long ‘fore he just flies off the chip. Poor bastard.” He finished the beer just in time for the blue-lipped waitress to bring him another. 

“This gonna be your last one, babe?”

“Yes,” Jupiter answered before the Mandalorian’s delayed response could slur out of his mouth.

“Nyu-- heeyyy.” He pouted at her.

“We got a long ride tonight, AT.” 

“Fiiine.” He rolled his eyes and huffed before casting his red-eyed and impossibly charming smile back towards the server. “Thank you anyhow, sweetheart.” 

“I was asking because someone’s agreed to pay your tab, just so you know.” 

“Who?” Anarawd’s demeanor was pulled up as if by an electric thread, surprised into seeming much less drunk all of a sudden. This appeared to not be the reaction the server expected. 

“Um, the patron would like to remain anonymous.” 

“We’re very grateful, regardless.” Jupiter smiled at her, a disarming one by the look on the server’s face, and then gave a sharp glance back at her companion. 

“Mhm,” AT agreed from inside his glass as he took another long draught. The server nodded, and scurried off to her duties.

“You’ve got a secret admirer.” Now the strange girl had turned her disarming smile back on him, but he wasn’t having it. No, she was already a powerful presence, but this wasn’t the time or place for flirting anymore. He finished his last beer completely, in record time, and stood up from the booth. 

“We should leave.” 


	19. snow

Everything was white, a vast featureless void of light. Yet, Rey stood on something solid. Or she thought she did, but there was no shadow, no texture, nothing to anchor her but her belief that she should be standing. 

“I don’t like this,” she said to nothing. Her words scattered and then bounced back, split into thousands. 

“What would you prefer?” The familiar voice was comforting even as it went scattershot around her.

“Something… nice. Green, maybe. Lush.” 

“Oh, I got ya.” 

Just like that, her bare feet were on grass. The jungle was around her-- what jungle, she had no idea. Maybe a fragment of the world before the bubble, the planet before she got eaten by her own children. Maybe a fantasy in the mind of some programmer. Either way, the red dirt girl was blinking in the sunlight that filtered down through a break in the trees. Warm air clung to her like water, cast a midday dew on her skin. She looked around, and heard the distant calls of birds and beasts totally foreign to her ears. 

“Better?” 

“Much,” she replied, smiling a little despite herself. A slender hand reached out to touch the fronds of a nearby plant, huge silky leaves in mottled green. Despite the humidity, which felt like it slowed everything down, the sheer magnitude of life around her was exhilarating.

“You wanna take a walk? Get your VR legs?” came the voice again. It still echoed like emptiness, but she didn’t mind.

“What do I look like?” 

“Yourself. You shouldn’t meet anybody here though, not unless ya wanna anyhow.” 

“Can I change how I look?” 

“Sure,” the voice sighed. “I dunno why you need to, but…”

“I don’t  _ need _ to, Poe. I want to. But I’ll wait ‘till I’m doing something more fun.” She took a careful step forward, but it wasn’t much different from walking anywhere else.

“Alright, little mouse, do whatever you want. You look fine the way you are.”

“I know, but I’m having fun!” The laugh that escaped her was normal, natural, except that it lacked a certain depth. It was like her voice was bereft of its resonance, thinned by translation into data. She took another step, and that one went fine as well. 

“Fair enough. That’s what most people do in VR.” The pilot seemed to have let go of his concerns for the time being. Rey rolled her eyes fondly and kept walking. The brush parted to make way for her, and she gently pushed vines and hanging leaves away from her face. 

“It feels very real,” she reported. 

“Yeah, it does. People get addicted to it for that reason.” She could fathom why. A world you can control, that’s all but real? Passing under shadows of trees and in and out of open spaces between the flora, she saw no wildlife despite hearing it all around. 

“And you can change it any time?” 

In response, the jungle gave way to a massive plain of tall yellow grass nodding in a breeze that touched her cheek, pulled at the baby hairs on the back of her neck. There were low shrubs and gnarled, windswept trees dotted around it, and off in the distance was a range of mountains whose tops were white. 

“Yeah, the driver can. You can drive while you’re in, or someone can drive for you like I am right now.” 

“What if I meet someone else? What if they wanna drive and try to change it?” 

“There’s a protocol for shared spaces where the environment stays intact. Unless someone hacks that, or overrides it somehow, it’s basically like public VR versus private VR.” 

“What’s that white stuff over there on the mountains?” she asked, pointing to them even though Poe could not see her. A warm chuckle rumbled through the air.

“It’s called snow.” 

“Snow?” 

She became cold all of a sudden, and realized that her feet were crunching through a powdery substance which seemed to  _ melt, _ of all things, against her flesh. A silence unlike any she’d ever heard was everywhere, and the powder was piling up on tree limbs and stones. The sky was a flat gray, and little flakes of something danced through the air falling on everything. 

“Yeah, snow. It’s rain, but it’s frozen. Don’t see much of it inside the bubble anymore, or anywhere else.” Her hand caught a few of the flakes, and she watched them melt into her skin with a pinprick of cold. 

“It’s-- this used to happen naturally?” The desert girl was appalled, enchanted. 

“Apparently, yeah.” She realized then that Poe had only seen snow in VR, too. The cold almost bothered her, but it also made her skin tingle and her nerves jump to life. 

“Wow.” She stepped-- Poe had given her boots, apparently, which was nice-- and heard that muffled crunch of crystals again even louder this time. But the sounds of everything but Poe’s voice were all cut off before they could carry far through the air. 

“Hey uh, Rey?” That tone was strange.

“Yeah?”

“Can you see anyone else in there?” She turned, looking through the black skeletons of trees in their cloak of white, but saw nothing. 

“Uh, no. Why?” 

“Just… a funny signal, I guess. There was a blip--”

**You again.** Spinning, Rey’s heart buried itself in her throat when she heard it. A massive figure, all in black, face covered by an all-too-familiar respiration helmet. She staggered back, away from the enormous black thundercloud of a man.

“Fuck!” she shrieked, almost involuntarily.

“Rey! Re--” The sudden and panicked calls of Poe were cut off, their echoes swallowed by the snow. The wind picked up, the flakes eddying around Kylo Ren’s silhouette. 

**Careful, little mouse.** He stepped towards her, and she stepped back. His movements were slow and intent. She felt her hands start to shake from something deeper than the chill.

“How did you--”

**You’re making a mistake, working for the Resistance.**

“I’m not working for them, I’m working  _ with _ them,” she snarled. “Not everything is a hierarchy!” 

**So they tell you. But what do you provide them that they don’t already have?** The air cut icy into her lungs as fear tried to grip her ribs tight against them.  **You’re not just a scavenger, are you?**

“Leave me alone.” Her voice was a hiss, furious and desperate. “POE!” 

**He can’t hear you, little mouse. I’m driving now.**

“What are you gonna do? Kill me?” 

**No, but your friend likely will if he tries to extricate you while I’m here. Or worse.** That struck her like an arrow--  _ fuck. Poe talked about this before. This is not good. _

“What do you want, then?” 

**You need a teacher.**

“Who? You?” She almost laughed. “You’re corporate swine. What are you gonna teach me?”

**How to use your power, not fear it.** He was looming closer, and she just kept backing up. But she saw his gloved fists clench. 

“Use it how? Like you do? To kill people for your boss?”

**TO MAKE A BETTER WORLD!** Finally he lunged for her-- there it was, that bright red slash of a weapon that crackled and screamed. She spun on her heel and darted off between the trees, not interested in finding out what happened if you were wounded in VR. But he was quick, too quick, just like he’d almost been in Ryloth. There was no air around her to feel, no earth to draw up energy from beneath her feet; psionics were useless in this no-place. 

Her cry was shrill as she turned to see him, to make him watch her eyes as he struck her. But a blue blade hummed in her hand, and she was swinging it up to catch his in a shatter of white that broke like a mirror around them--

_ Poe! He figured out a way to get this here!  _ The lightsaber in her hand looked like Luke’s, and it vibrated against the sputter of her opponent’s blade. Ren bore down hard, but her strength was much greater than he’d expected from such a wisp of a girl. She glared up at him, amber eyes flashing. 

**I can show you the ways of the Force. Ways the Jedi would not.**

“Fuck you,” she replied, her lip curling. He felt that love of all things feral and wild swell up inside him-- but this one he wanted to tame, to control. How his master would treasure such a creature, and treasure him for bringing her to him.

Just at that moment, she lunged and pushed him back, shifting her blade to send his in a loop. She darted away, but Kylo Ren was pursuit itself. Even as she clambered, she would turn to block a strike or parry his blows; once or twice she struck at him. They were coming through the spectral forest and careening towards an opening in the trees. 

**Nothing’s going to get better down there on the ground, little mouse. Above, that’s where our salvation will come from.**

“I don’t believe your eco-fascist bio-purist bullshit.” She was up on a rock now, and realized that this was a cliff ledge. The drop into gray shadow below made her so dizzy that she wanted to vomit. 

**Snoke is going to give us back our humanity. You don’t understand, because you’re still pure. The technology changes us, eats away at us. I watched it happen to my uncle, he watched it happen to my grandfather.**

Rey could almost feel the vastness opening up behind her; her skin crawled as she faced him there on the rock. She had the high ground, and even in a simulation that was still the advantage in a knife fight. But then, she felt a strange tug at her navel. 

“You’re wrong, Kylo Ren. Technology could liberate us from our own cages, the cages we build for ourselves!” 

**That what Organa told you?** Even through the vocoder, his voice ground into her ears with anger.  **That if we saw it as not separate from ourselves, it could make us more than what we are?**

“Yes!” She glared at him as he slowly, slowly approached her like cornered prey. There was that tug, again.

**Transhumanist garbage. You and I, we are already more than human.**

“You’re much less than human, Kylo Ren.” The third and final tug, and she suddenly understood. Swallowing her terror, she took a step backward and into something even thinner than air. 

**NO!** He lunged-- but it was too late. Rey was falling off the cliff, hurtling through darkness. Snarling furiously, he watched her vanish into the gray static below.

Rey, on the other hand, suddenly gasped and her eyes flew wide open to see the dust-colored ceiling of the control room.

“Rey! Rey, shit!” Hands were on her face, sweet hands, desperate hands. Poe’s scruff swam before her eyes. “Rey, you’re okay, oh thank fuck. I was scared shitless that wasn’t gonna work.”

“Whuuh,” she tried to say, but her heart was pounding and she was sweating and stiff against the VR chair. The nodes, the thing they put on her head were both still attached. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I have no idea how he got in there,” the pilot was saying, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. He finally tugged the equipment off, plucked the nodes off her temples and neck and forehead and kissed the little red marks they left. 

“Poe.” Her voice was hoarse, rasping out of her throat like a desert wind. “Poe--”

Lips overtook hers, pressed soft and hungry into them. That sensation still shook her from her core, and her exhausted mind fell into it for a few moments.

“Finn’s gonna be so fuckin’ mad at me,” the pilot murmured finally when he broke their kiss. 

“I’m okay, Poe. You got me out. Thank you.” Her smile was like sunlight, and he felt his heart ache. Then he realized a little more fully what the hell had just happened. 

“Shit. We gotta talk to Leia.” 


	20. personal log 07

>loading…

>key:

>password accepted

>recorded [date redacted], 07 personal log

>Sometimes I am overwhelmed after reviewing the video logs. It is difficult to explain. But it wearies my systems to take this information in. It lives in my central processor all the time, of course, so it is always there but I am not always watching it, or running it through my pre-frontal matrix. The data doesn’t take up that much space, ultimately, but it requires much more of my systems to be active during review. 

>The memory logs are worse. I think they must tax every system I have. Father is talking about upgrading my flux core to something a little more self-sustaining. I ask him if I will ever be less tired after such information-dense experiences, and he says I will simply become more adept at navigating them. Although, a self-sustaining power source would help. 

>Today I reviewed historical documents. Education about the rise and fall of the company called Empire Corps. It was not the same exhaustion, but I did feel the multiple systems at play again. It was not like this before. Everything ran through the central processor, self-contained. But now it runs through my body as well, more and more systems looped in. Father says this is how I will learn to emulate humans flawlessly. 

>The data presents such a huge variety of human behaviors that I am baffled as to the correct ones in a given situation. Father says that once my body is fully in sync with my central processor, it will be more ‘intuitive’ how to respond. From what I can gather, ‘intuition’ is a kind of knowledge that cannot be gathered, quantified, or understood fully by the cognitive algorithms. I find this to be much more logical than I once did, now that my body is beginning to function like it is supposed to. I cannot imagine being a human and feeling this all of the time. They must be weary things. 

>I am looking forward to seeing the outside someday soon. There is a lot to learn.

>recording ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all are hanging in there and enjoying the fic!


	21. rescue

Darkness slowly gave way to a dream-- no. A memory. A reprocessing. Marked for failure, contained, bright white full of hungry shadows that kept staring and staring, then to be used,  _ recycled _ they said, and blinding anger and the pain, the pain--

“Whoa, easy there killer,” came gruff words. Slowly a man came into focus, face as gruff as his voice with salt-and-pepper hair and a scar on his chin. Whatever place this was, it was not like any place from before. “You feelin’ alright?”

Where was the voice, the voice--

“You look a lot better than you did, I can tell ya that much.”

**What happened to me?** The man looked surprised, to say the least. 

“Holy shit. Do all of you talk like that? Without moving your lips, I mean?”

**Y-- yes. I assume. I have never heard another like myself speak. It is simply how I communicate.**

“Wow. They’re really doing some crazy shit up in that tower.” 

**What tower?** Now he gave half a smirk, only barely touched with humor.

“You fell outta First Order’s headquarters. And you were royally fucked when you hit the roof under it, too, almost fifty stories down. You guys gotta be tough, ‘cuz there’s no reason you should still be alive. But Chewie here, he’s pretty good with parts. Got your arm stuck back on.” 

**My arm…** There it was. Wrapped in metal plates, who knew how much flesh was still underneath it. It was swollen and slow, but it moved. Fingers moved, too. 

“Your leg, we had to amputate. And I dunno if you know this--” he glanced over, and there was a big, hairy  _ something _ over in the corner that canted its head-- “but you got no skin. And that’s bound to scare some people.” 

**I am well aware that I have no skin.**

“Alright, well. I’m just sayin’. We wanna get you to somebody who can help you out with that, and with some other stuff we couldn’t get patched up well for ya. Someone who’s good with augs and limbs and shit, can get you a new leg maybe, and something like skin I reckon.” He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. “If you want.” 

The hairy creature nearby let out a warbling bellow. 

“C’mon, you know Lobo loves projects and fixin’ folks up. Remember what he did for you?” One gray eyebrow was raised as he looked at his companion-- Chewie, it must be. “He’s a big softie.” 

**I do not see as I have a choice.**

“Oh, you got a choice, killer. Everybody does. Just, you gotta look at your other options. Which involve you, uh, going off someplace by yourself to die, letting us help you out, or going back to Supremacy Spire. Maybe you can add to that list?” 

**No.**

“Alright, well. We figured if you jumped outta damn near the top floor of that joint, you might be okay with getting pretty far away from it.” The smirk was back, smug, somehow not unkind. 

**How far away?**

\-----

Rey was coming around the corner towards the hangar bay when she stopped at the sound of the blast doors opening. Into the mouth of the pillar roared a Coreillian freighter, flat and so massive it barely fit. And she knew that ship. 

“Han!” she cried, beaming as the smuggler ambled bowlegged out of the hatch. He grinned and caught her, embracing the needle-sharp scavenger like one of his own. Perhaps she was.

“Hey kid.” He put her back on her feet and patted her shoulder in his stilted way. “How’s it goin’?” 

“It’s… been better. But alright.” 

“Been better? When?” 

“Fair enough,” she laughed. 

“Listen, kid, is Lobo up?” he asked, glancing furtively around the bay which was otherwise empty. 

“He’s always up, isn’t he?” 

“Fair.” He looked her over, noticed the silver gleam in her eye. “You got an oculus now, I see.” 

“Yeah.” She didn’t seem particularly enthused. “I guess it’s alright.” 

“You’ll like it soon enough, I promise.”

“You want me to buzz Leia?” At this, his face grew a little surly. 

“She doesn’t wanna see me.” Rey frowned at him, but then a woof came down the hatch and a tall, hairy figure appeared. 

“Hi Chewie,” she smiled at him, and the Wookie burbled a greeting and gave her one of his stooping, warm hugs. “Well I’m glad I get to see you, too.” 

And then, nine feet of blue muscle appeared in the open doorway behind him. She almost screamed out of pure shock, but clapped a hand over her mouth. 

“Kid, kid, settle down,” Han urged her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “This one’s a rescue, just like you. And, what I wanna see Lobo about.” 

“Wh-where did you find it?” she asked, catching her breath. “What  _ is _ it?” Slowly the creature made wavering steps down the ramp, and she realized it was leaning on a beat-up old electrostaff because one of its legs was missing. 

**I am a Slymicon.**

“They apparently always talk like that,” Han intoned to the desert girl with a smirk as she shook her head and tried to process an entire series of startling realities, not the least of which was a creature who spoke without moving its mouth. “Found ‘em on a roof outside Supremacy Spire. Apparently, he made a helluva getaway. You’re famous, you know that?” He looked back at the featureless blue face. 

**I was unaware.**

Chewie barked, and gestured to the Slymi as he struggled to continue walking. The Wookie sidled up and let him lean on his shoulder. 

“A Slymi? A real-- where’s it’s skin? Don’t they usually have skin?” 

**Not until we are approved after conditioning.** Rey blinked at him.

“So, you escaped?” 

**Yes.**

“Before they gave you a skin?”

**I do not believe they were planning on giving me one.**

“This one’s a disruptor.” Han was giving that scoundrel grin that took on such a fatherly look once in a while. “I like him. Wanna see if Lobo can get him a good leg, and some other stuff. Dunno if we can afford a proper skin…” 

“There’s some silica here somewhere, I think. We jacked a delivery that had some in it a while back, dunno if anybody actually used it for anything, but. Lobo knows, I’m sure.” She tapped a button on a comm at her collar, but didn’t miss Han’s curious expression. “Hey Lobo, you up?”

_ "Of course I am!” _ came a cheerful, tinny response.  _ “What can I do for you, dear?” _

“Someone has, uh, a delivery for you?” She ended the sentence with a confused look at Han, not certain she’d used the right phrasing at all. The smuggler just shrugged. 

_ "Oh, well, send it on down!” _

Chewie gave another rumbly woof.

“I don’t think he’ll fit in the halls, kid,” Han chuckled. “Being that tall is a real glitch.”

“Um, you might have to come up for it,” Rey said into the comm link. 

_ “Really? Always in the middle of--” _ The tiny speaker fell silent with a scratch. 

“He’s on his way.” She grinned, turned to the Slymi. “He’ll fix you up, uh… wait. What’s your name?” It was almost endearing, the way the somewhat horrific and enormous creature canted his head curiously at her.

**My designation is SB-FU.**

“That’s… that’s kinda hilarious, the FU part.” She stifled a giggle, and Han’s little grin widened. “I’m Rey. Anyway, SB, you’ll be all soldered up and shiny in no time.”


	22. child

Leia was slumped against the opening of the blast-door, staring out into desert night. The actual population of Jakku was clustered off in lights down east of the base, barely three levels high. One could nearly see a few stars, this far out on the rim with next to no nanofog. But she did not look up, or anywhere in particular. Even her bones were weary, but sleep did not come to her and no amount of cranial augmentations could remedy that.

Her oculus was on, an older model that used an eyescreen instead of a silicone cornea. Images flashed, relics of previous lives. One was lingering-- it wasn’t the glitched face of her son she stared into. It was Han’s face, still brutally intact, who was holding little Ben. Her eyes felt like they wanted desperately to weep, but she was a husk. 

“You should be resting,” came a voice she knew. 

“You’re above ground, Lobo.” She didn’t turn to look at the tall, thin man who sat cross-legged beside her. “Which means you’re not resting, either.”

“I s’pose neither of us could, tonight.” 

“No. Not tonight.” The old hacknician’s eyes slid over to her when she spoke, the leader of this pack of creatures who longed to be free. 

“Have you heard from him?” 

“Who?” Now she eyed him as well, and her oculus shut itself off. 

“Your husband.” 

“Have I ever?” They both looked back out at the purple-brown cloak of night, deeply familiar. Lobo sighed-- he wanted to make her feel better, even though he knew he couldn’t. 

“If it’s this bad already, imagine how it’ll be once the final phase starts,” he chuckled humorlessly. 

“By then I hope I’m dead.” 

“Now, Leia--”

“I know I won’t be, is why I say that. Not because I plan to be,” she assured him, voice gruff and resigned. The older man regarded her, so much like a mountain amid the howling storm. Only recently had she finally begun to seem her age. 

“You still think you’re doing the right thing?” 

“I dunno.” She had never been afraid of honest answers. She looked back at him, shifting a little. “You still think I’m doing the right thing?”

“I think you’re doing the only thing, Leia. I don’t imagine what else there is to do.” 

“I guess I don’t either, or I’d be doing that.” 

“I know you would.” Lobo reached out to give her hand which was resting on her knee a little squeeze. She half-smiled at him, and let another moment of silence fall over them just to see if her classically jittery companion could ride it out.

Just as he was gearing up to speak again about Maker knows what, the sound of a sputtering engine filtered through the air. Leia was the first to rise, Lobo tapping at his oculus before he followed suit.

The X-wing that pulled up to the orange tooth of stone where they sheltered scraped its claws into the earth suddenly, grinding and then jerking to a stop. Out of its opening hatch stumbled a girl in a red dress. She walked unsteadily towards them. 

When she fell to the ground, Lobo moved faster than Leia had ever seen him move before.

\-----

“How is she?”

The lab down in B5 was even more cluttered than usual, she noticed. The hacknician walked in rubbing his forehead, body no longer taut with the sparkle of fear. His thoughts had even slowed, she noticed. 

“She’ll be alright. Her power was running too low. I need something better than a flux core, Leia.”

“You know how hard it is to get anything else that isn’t a fuckin’ repulsorlift?” She frowned at him, and sudden anger ran like a clawmark over her face.

“Yes, I have an inkling,” Lobo replied. “Why are you upset? I told you about this months ago, when the last silica shipment came in.” 

“I’ve tried, believe me. But I don’t understand why a flux core won’t cut it--”

“That’s because you don’t know how many systems have to loop into everything she takes in!” He cut her off, starting to mirror her anger. “She’s just like a person! She has to absorb all new information all the time through every single part of her, and Maker knows that tires the hell out of all of us. Now imagine you don’t sleep or eat or, I dunno, have a solar panel up your ass or something. We have to fuel a whole body coding data all the time into itself!” 

“Cool off, Taran.” She didn’t call him that unless she was serious. The man frowned at her, and crossed his two real arms. The cybernetic one put its hand on his hip. 

“Easy for you to say, she’s not  _ your _ child--”

“No, she’s going to kill my child.” Brown eyes flashed at him, and for a moment Lobo remembered just where Kylo Ren’s temper actually came from. He felt his heart sink; she was right. “I wonder if she already has.” 

“I doubt it. We’re far from the final phase. But I guess we’ll find out when she powers back on.” 


	23. compelled

Kylo Ren knew there was a business luncheon in progress in the west arboretum. But his reputation meant a great many things, and he exploited it somewhat regularly. He moved like a stormfront through the upper suites of Supremacy Spire, ready to be rid of this particular point of contention between himself and a certain pasty ginger which was like a splinter that only stoked his ire.

When the doors parted, a living painting greeted him. Flora long turned to dust outside the bubble dotted the green along the path, a reminder of what was lost. And a symbol of power, of course, but nothing about this building was not that. He strode with purpose down the path until he came to a patio under a curtain of vines, and there was a table of five-- and at the head, facing him when he entered as though to block the sun, was Hux. His long face fell in a nearly comical way when he met with the respirator mask. 

“Oh.” He’d been in the middle of some spiel, but his sly enthusiasm fell instantly. “Ren.” 

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Of course, he was.

“Forgive me, Mr. Voss, but I’m sure our Chief Operations Officer has some dreadfully important news,” Hux said, interlacing his fingers on the white tablecloth and glaring pointedly. 

“I’m sure,” muttered the large man with goatee and gray robes at his host’s left hand. He daubed his face with a napkin. The other faces around the table all struggled to decide whether to look at Kylo, or to look away. Their discomfort, bordering on fear, was palpable. The person in front of him, opposite Hux at the table, had not even turned to face him yet. 

“Requisition Order A70238 has finally been located.”

“Jolly good, Ren. Where is it?” 

“It’s in the ocean.” Hux’s face contorted with bafflement.

“The  _ ocean? _ ”

“The shipment container was found in the water off of Kamino. Its contents were not, although traces of the material are left.” 

“Bloody stuff’s likely been dissolved. Dare I ask how the hell it got there?” 

“Your guess is as good as mine, unless your Slymicon learned more of it.” The mention of the biogenetically-engineered hunters shifted the table uneasily, and Hux not least of all. The doomed spectacle of the most recent fundraising gala burned like a brand on the CFO’s pride. Beneath his helmet, Kylo’s smile was sardonic.

“I have received no word of that order until now,” muttered the redhead. 

“Perhaps you should check in with your pet, then. Or the remains of it. My scouts did find the guts of one whose self-destruct protocol activated in a Coreillian freight yard. Don’t know how long it’s been there.” Now, the table seemed to be looking from him to Hux, awaiting the next sentence like the next chapter in a riveting tale. But the person in front of him suddenly turned around to face him, and his entire body froze.

It was  _ her.  _

“I’ll have to verify that report later,” Hux was saying. Two of his guests were whispering into one another’s ears in some language that wasn’t Basic. “It is highly unlikely anyone possesses the skill to--”

“Perhaps more likely than you think, by the sound of it, Hux.” She was speaking, the first of his guests brave enough to do so loudly. Her gravelly voice sent pangs through his gut.  _ Why is she here? _ “Or perhaps the protocol was improperly triggered?” Hazel eyes were looking right at him even though her words were for the CFO. It was far from the look she’d given him out of uniform. But of all the things it should have been, it was not quite afraid. 

“Those protocols  _ are _ in alpha, still.” Hux rubbed his finger on his chin thoughtfully. “You make an excellent point, dove.” 

Kylo felt himself burn-- how dare this lifeless, soulless construction of a man speak to her fondly, as though he  _ understood  _ her--

“Regardless, this is your problem, Hux. My department doesn’t keep track of those things.” He pushed the words out in a growl between his teeth. 

“Very well, Ren, if that’s all, then I do have business to attend to.” Now the ginger looked irritated, and he sat back in his chair and smoothed the front of his jacket. She was still looking at him, and he ached to hear what was in her mind. Yet it remained silent as always, as flashes of what might have been curiosity, concern, and a feral brightness-- a challenge, maybe?-- flickered over her features. In the dappled sunlight her eyes were more green than before. 

He could do nothing, could say nothing to her from behind that mask without giving himself away. Furious, he simply turned on his heel and left. 

\-----

He was only just in civilian clothes, just washed and just free of everything that felt like the boiling hate of living beneath obfuscation when he nearly ran out to the reception hall of the floor of the arboretum. Hux was emerging from the doors, saying something to the waitstaff behind him. Kylo’s strides took him over in seconds.

“Where are they?” he asked, not the same bite in his throat as earlier.

“You are in rare form today,” Hux replied with a frown, waving the waiter off. “Who?” 

“The people you were entertaining, earlier.”

“The guests are on a tour of the art gallery, I believe.” One ginger brow was furrowed in his pale face. The larger man was already turning away, moving with purpose-- but that was usual, for him. Hux narrowed his eyes, tugging his gloves back on one at a time as he watched the COO vanish down one of the hallways. 

Kylo found the group in the portrait gallery, but she was not with them. He snarled to himself, and peeled away before he approached. He knew where else to look. 

Sure enough, there she was in the sculpture garden, standing before that powerful black bronze sculpture that towered over her. He’d slowed his steps, caught his breath, but he almost didn’t care if she knew he’d been running to her. Almost. 

“Here you are again,” he said, letting his voice fall to velvet. She turned, and her eyes lit up just a fraction. It was certainly not the way she looked at Kylo Ren. Half a smile graced her expression. 

“You’ve found me.” 

“Are you supposed to be on the tour? The one that’s two galleries over?” 

“Yes.” His eyes roved over her, and she was wearing much less suggestive clothing today. Black, simple, close to her body, structured and elegant. Business casual. It didn’t diminish his response to her at all.

“I see what’s called you back here, then.” 

“It’s a compelling piece,” she said, looking back up at its faceless face. “I wanted to see it again before I left.”

“You’re leaving?” 

“Well, of course. In about half an hour.”

“You could stay a little longer,” he purred, drawing closer to her. “As my guest.”

“I don’t know that I could.” Eyes still on the sculpture.

“Why not?”

“I’m expected elsewhere. And,”-- now her eyes fell to the floor-- “you don’t know me. You don’t need to.”

“But I’d like to.” He felt his guts twist around, and once again he was uncertain of why he was so utterly compelled.

“You don’t understand--” His big, rough hand was on her chin, lifting it with gentle urgency until he found her eyes. 

“Help me understand.” 

“I…” She was lost in his burning gaze, and at least her sense of captivation was clear on her face. He leaned closer, so much closer, held his lips over hers without touching them together just yet.

“Please.” 

“I want to,” she breathed. “I can’t now.”

“Later?”

“When?”

“Anytime, anywhere. I’ll be there.” 

“Oooh.” Her sigh was collapsing into him. “Not here, please. I don’t--”

“The Millennium Hotel is on the south side.” 

Sounds of the other guests in the hallway that led into the sculpture garden filtered through to his ears, and hers too. She pulled away from him suddenly, and he let his hand fall from her face. 

“Tomorrow week?” she asked, and his heart pounded in his chest. “Night?”

“I’ll see you there.” She didn’t smile at this, but something danced in her eyes before she turned and walked towards the hallway. Just before she entered it, she turned back to glance at him. He didn’t smile, but something danced in his eyes, too.

_ Agony. _


	24. transcript - log 20.93

>//server/LAN/system/library/target/kylo/data/history/file:oMCX99xABY.vid

>recorded [date redacted], 20.78 Finn, formerly FN-2187

>transcribed by  Ph|2/\k+a|_

>buffering…

>key:

>password accepted

>notes: Finn is a former employee of First Order, LLC. His knowledge will reveal much about how Ren uses his power in his own territory.

>transcription begins

>So, uh, I’m supposed to talk about my experiences with Kylo Ren?

>he looks to the side

>Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, his reputation went before and after him. Which was, essentially, that he was easy to piss off and you didn’t wanna piss him off. But more often than not, seems like he took whatever’s wrong with him out on equipment. He’s not like Vader was s’posed to be. I mean, Vader would kill you at the drop of a hat, right? Ren just scared people. I think he roughhoused Hux more than anybody else.

>he chuckles

>All us peons hated him because he made our bosses act even more shitty about the rules. They hired me off the street, I don’t even know when. I still haven’t said anything-- to people outside the LAN, anyhow-- about the child labor. I don’t think anybody would believe me, unless more of us defected. Well, defected and also ended up not-dead. 

>he pauses

>I got ordered out with my entire unit to clean up someplace on the edge of the city that a Slymicon went rogue on. Those things are dangerous, not just ‘cuz they’re built that way. Their brains aren’t exactly right, is what I heard. Like they’re smart-- they learn fast. But they fly off, sometimes. I just wanna know how they’re made, cuz they’re like the smartest hunting dogs ever, but when they get too smart or some instinct inside them just breaks, they get killed and then explode.

>he pauses

>Literally. I’ve seen it happen. I think FO plants detonators inside them. I felt so bad for this one. It was-- anyway. I won’t get into it. I was there to clean up, that was my job. There were handlers trying to get this Slymi to settle, it was stuck inside a big freight container with the lid half off, but it was freaking out ‘cuz these assholes kept trying to scare it into behaving and that wasn’t helping at all. One of them was talking about just shooting it, and that pissed me off. They made the fuckin’ Slymicons, didn’t they? Were they just gonna shoot one of their own? 

>he looks down

>he looks back up

>They didn’t like my protests, but they liked it even less when I let the thing go. 

>he smirks

>I was on the run for a minute, but the next time I saw Kylo Ren was in D’Qar. Turns out he was there with a full division of Req officers, trying to fuck up a Resistance checkpoint. That’s where I met Poe, who saved my ass. Found out later my little dick move letting the Slymi out is what got Kylo pulled out of VR to come check for Resistance activity at the site, which saved Poe’s ass at the time. Funny how that happens, right?

>he smiles

>So yeah, me and Poe got outta there together, but a lot of folks didn’t. When he’s actually fighting, Ren is a motherfucker. He’s much less likely to kill his own than Vader apparently was, but get him in a mess of Resistance and he just kinda flips his chip. He hates us in a way that’s pretty special. Now that I know why, it makes more sense. 

>he shakes his head

>That’s about all I got about Kylo, honestly. I stayed far as hell away from him as much as I could. Don’t think anyone would blame me.

>transcription ends


	25. tangled

Poe was confident enough to look like himself, but dress like a silent discotheque goer, in VR. So in a way he did not look like himself at all, wearing solid white streaked with shifting neon like madcap fireflies shot through it. Rey giggled watching him amble through the streets of some virtual city whose name she had not bothered to ask, one full of lights and smooth black plastic and massive screen-walls. One not distant enough from reality, she thought.

She was in a dark gray jumpsuit because it would let her sink into shadows like she was made of them. And because Poe would take all the attention of a casual glance. 

“You think this’ll go according to program?” she asked the pilot over her constant scanning of their surroundings.

“Does it ever go according to program?” He smirked, always handsome and full of swagger even when she knew he was alert, too. “Finn’s got us. We just gotta get back to the checkpoint.”

“Yeah.” They turned into an opening Rey might’ve missed otherwise, folding into darkness. 

**Present your key.** The high metallic ring of a voice was coming from a narrow slit in the door they approached. 

“My key is Maz Kanada’s bank account, bud. I’m here to square up.” Poe crossed his arms. 

**You think she’ll buy that?** Clearly the firewall thought that was pretty funny. The desert girl eyed her companion, beginning to wonder about what exactly he’d been doing before he joined the LAN. 

“I dunno, but the boss lady sent me, so I really fuckin’ hope so.” A moment of silence while the firewall considered; Rey realized she didn’t have to push the flow of other people’s thoughts away from her. Not in VR.  _ That  _ was certainly different.

**You’re in, flyboy. Don’t fuck it up.** The smooth black surface of the door slid away, opening into a dark hall lit by UV bulbs. Poe nodded his gratitude at the doorway, motioned Rey to follow him. Slowly the pulse of the music, which was low and deep and rang through her guts like hunger, increased its volume. 

Inside was almost a discotheque and almost a bar and almost a casino full of VR slot machines, every surface shiny black and everything lit with pink or green neon or UV strips that lined the corners of booths, tables, the bar. It looked like something above the 70th floor, an emulation of slick and monied leisure. But something about it felt just as dirty as the low-level cantinas in any given city. Poe led her past hologram bodies with no augs or outlandish augs or beautiful, crafted, artful augs, dancing nude or barely clothed and serving customers drinks.

Another door made to slip unseen between walls, another hallway-- here it was. The thing that felt seedy about this place was evident between passing doorways. Strange bets were being placed in the VIP rooms, that was for sure. 

When they entered one, the cheers of a couple dozen people rang out as if to greet them. Ahead was a ring, around which people clung to the barrier, whooping and watching as two droids battled each other. The only person who took notice of their entrance was a tiny old woman with white hair that nearly glowed under the UV, her eyes like two sharp pinpricks of light inside her broad and weathered face. 

“Go ahead, Dameron. Make your pitch,” she said to Poe as he approached. 

“Maz. You don’t think I’d be here without--”

“Spare me the character reference.” She raised one otherworldly-white eyebrow at him.

“Anyway… this is little mouse,” he replied, gesturing to Rey. “One of the new folks.” Now she softened a bit, and gave a smile that was full of wisdom but not entirely sweet and warm. 

“Welcome to my humble establishment, little mouse.”

“Uh, thank you,” replied Rey softly. Perhaps too true to her username, she realized. 

“Boss lady sent us ‘cuz she’s lookin’ for something that’s hard to find. She’s got pay,” Poe explained.

“And what about you?” Maz was not having the evasion.

“I got pay too, once this run is over.”

“Promises, promises. You know I don’t take credits, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Bits only.” She smiled at him, and it still did not seem motherly even if it was more fond.

“In what might I interest you?”

Rey was supposed to be listening, she knew. But she was watching the fight, watching one metal hunk of a droid try to take out a spindly thing. Everyone at the ring looked like they couldn’t afford avatar chips that would alter their appearances… except maybe the two people in helmets who conferred at the far end.

“...be a real glitch to divert, you’ll end up in Hutt territory either way,” Maz was saying.

“Yeah, I been there before. I hear ya.” The pilot sounded less than pleased. Glancing back at them, Rey watched her hand him something, a chip of some kind. “Thank you, Maz. This is some kinda big deal to the boss.”

“I know she doesn’t ask for help from me without a frighteningly good reason.” The older woman’s eyes flickered over to the desert girl. “How do you like the fight, little mouse?” 

“Oh, I um. I was noticing the people more I think. I’ve seen botfighting before.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, back in Jakku.”

“Ah, well, that would be the sort of place. I like VR rings better. They’re more ethical and easier to clean up.” She gave half a grin. “You’re from Jakku, then?”

“I’m not from anywhere,” Rey murmured. 

“You and I both, my dear.” Now her eyes were back on the fight as well, and she sighed. “Today’s slow. Only two new faces, and they’re both bucketheads and neither placed a bet.” 

“You think they’re cops?” Poe asked her from the side of his mouth.

“No, my guess is they’re independent contractors and they’re not here for me.” The scavenger’s eyes went back to the two helmets at the ring when Maz seemed so sure. A man and a woman, ostensibly. They were casual enough, if more subdued than the others. 

“Might be Mandalorians.” The pilot’s voice got even lower.

“I’d rather that than Reqs.”

“You got Req officers in VR?”

“Specialists. They push into software more and more all the time,” the white-haired woman sighed. Even though she couldn’t feel it like she usually did, Rey knew Poe well enough to see that this bothered him a lot more than most other things had since she’d met him. Maz seemed to know it, too. She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll buy you a drink. On the house.”

“That's almost too kind to be in-character of you, Maz, but I’m fine. I wanna get back to the checkpoint soon. I don’t much like it in here, these days.” Rey wanted to reach out and touch him, but she was reluctant to do it with other eyes around. Especially ones so keen as Maz Kanada’s. Not here, where she felt so vulnerable she wouldn’t even use her real name.

“Aright. Be careful, Dameron. And you too, little mouse.” She turned to Rey once more. “I give him shit, but if you’re with the LAN you can always come here.” 

“Thank you,” the scavenger responded with a little smile. Before they could turn to go, though, a chorus of shouts and shrieks from back up the VIP hallway came muffled to their ears. 

“Shit.” Maz took off, and Poe and Rey were on her heels. 

When they entered the main room, people were scrambling out and even vanishing suddenly, extracting themselves. Because in the center of the room was a tower of black crowned with a respirator helmet.

“Oh you _gotta_ be kidding me!” Poe groaned. 

**There you are, little mouse. I wonder why we’re linked, you and I?** Kylo Ren’s voice was less full of snarl than usual, more of a predatory rumble. 

“Why are you doing this?” Rey was aghast, but she was rooted to the spot where she stood. 

**I’m not. It seems the virtual network is.**

“We gotta go, now,” Poe hissed at her. “We’re fucked unless we make the checkpoint!” 

**Perhaps our signals are entangled. Regardless, you’ve brought me to a place rife with potential for requisition of First Order property.**

“The public protocols are all in place here,” Maz said, voice gone hard as steel.

**I doubt it. But that’s not my concern.** Finally he moved, taking one massive stride towards Rey. She tensed, and her hand flew to her belt. 

Out of the blue, behind Ren, came a series of blaster shots-- one not just a blaster, but a massive rifle. The two helmeted figures from the botfighting ring had made their way in and were firing. He spun and blocked them with his furious red blade that sprang out lighting quick, but the barrage kept up even as the shots scattered around the room and struck everything with sparks. 

“Now’s our chance!” Poe took Rey’s hand and pulled her with him around a cluster of slot machines towards the entrance. Maz was shooting too now, and Ren was astonishing at keeping up. In fact, he was moving so fast that he spat one of the shots back at the bucketheads and struck the taller one. It sputtered against his armor, and he clanged to the floor. The other one moved so fast she nearly rivaled the COO, and struck at him with a laser-edged blade--

_ And hit. _ His roar was garbled under the helmet as it caught his shoulder. She even managed to dodge his saber as he swung at her by rolling away, leaving an errant table to catch the plasma’s searing strike. Her companion was back on his feet, already taking cover behind the bar.

Poe had tugged Rey all the way back to the exit-- which was locked. Hell, it didn’t even seem to be there at all anymore.

“Fucking shit!” He was shaking, but his hand was on his blaster. “We’re gonna have to shoot our way out.”

**That worked so well last time, Dameron.** Ren was bearing down upon them again, but this time Rey’s blue blade shot up to meet him.

“I’m not going with you!” Her amber eyes glared at him, daring him to try despite the fear that was also on her face. 

**I’ll come get you, then!** Just as he was going to swing, he had to turn to block another massive rifle shot from behind the bar.  **And you as well, Mandalorian!**

Rey came swinging, trying to bite while the throat was bared. But he caught her, and they became a flurry of plasma blades. Poe cursed, knowing he couldn’t shoot now for fear of striking his lover. Then, he saw the woman in her helmet coming towards him. 

“He’s tangled the matrix,” she said, voice fuzzy through the vocoder. “But I think I can untangle it.” He blinked at her.

“Fucking  _ how? _ ” 

“Cover me.” She ducked over to a slot machine and pulled its back panel off, shutting all its screens down. Poe crouched nearby, trying desperately and fruitlessly to line up a shot on Kylo Ren. There wasn't much to cover from as the two saber-wielders clashed, white light splitting the air when their blades met. He kept glancing back, watching the stranger’s hands as she pulled apart the innards of the thing and plugged them back in, but in the wrong places. Pulling something from her vest pocket--  _ that’s a fucking network key!-- _ she pushed it into a slot.

“Holy shit! Where’d you learn to hack like that?” He couldn’t keep himself from asking. She ignored him, of course. The screens jumped back to life with a sputter. 

“You have to run now.” She said this to him with such placid and firm authority that he didn’t bother to question it. Springing up, he saw the exit door was back, and wide open.

“REY!” Just at the moment the pilot distracted her with his shout, he realized his mistake. As if in slow motion, he watched a red blade arc towards her--

Then Kylo Ren faltered, bellowing with rage as a blaster shot struck his wrist.  _ Holy shit, she got him again. _ The helmeted woman’s blaster was smoking. Rey, gasping for breath, saw her chance and darted away, following Poe out of the exit and into the roar of the street.

They did not stop running until they made the checkpoint and vanished.


	26. ROM fragment - 024829aby.vid

>uploading…

>key:

>password accepted

>this is a non-native file. are you sure you want to proceed?

>confirmed

>buffering…

>additional notes provided by  Ph|2/\k+a|_

>note: Luke has agreed to donate a memory to your databank. This is a pivotal moment, that I have no doubt Kylo remembers.

>recorded [date redacted]

>Inside the lab in Hosnian Prime, the mess from the day’s activities has finally been cleared away and the students of my craft have scattered back to wherever they call home. I’m laying out the materials for another, more clandestine lesson. 

>Ben enters the room from the secret door. Every single time that door opens I think of how close we are to the stock exchange, how under the enemy’s nose this place is. More than a hundred stories under it, but still. Ben’s eyes are bright, but trepidation is there too.

> _ Uncle Luke? _

>Hey, Ben.

> _ I… I got a message. Just a minute ago. _

>I think nothing of it.

>From who?

> _ From… from First Order, LLC. _

>My blood freezes, and I feel the strangest pang. Like I am suddenly aware of just how limited my access to the Force has become, that this news surprises me. [note: At this time, it was uncertain who among the competition would strive to take over. But FO had been partnering with smaller companies left and right, butting in on the trade of larger ones. Most of this wasn’t news, so much as some of those left disenfranchised by FO came to the LAN for help.] I try to stay calm, but I know Ben can sense the panic under my skin.

>What does it say?

> _ It says I’ve been offered an internship.  _

>I am unsure of what I’d expected, but this was not it in the slightest. It does nothing to quell my fear. Ben’s a young man, now. 23 years old, tall and broad-chested like his grandfather. I wonder why I think of my father in this moment, but I cannot process everything at once.

>Really?

> _ Yeah. It says I’m invited to help them pilot the Requisitions Program, which is a cybersecurity initiative.  _

>Wonder how they got your name…

> _ I mean, I did pretty well at coding school, didn’t I?  _

>I eye him. His tone is defensive-- his grades were pretty good. His teachers had always been surprised by his approach to certain problems, and some hadn’t been fond of his more disruptive qualities which made themselves manifest even in code. But maybe piloting a program means that FO is looking for interns who aren’t frightened of trying new things. 

>That does make sense, if they found your records. 

> _ I think this could be a real opportunity for me to get inside there and see what’s going on. _

>What?

> _ Listen, I know it’s risky-- _

>It’s much worse than risky! It could compromise the whole LAN! 

> _ But Uncle, this is a chance to see how they operate from the inside! _

>I frown at him, terrified and angry and confused. I don’t know why this is happening. I don’t like it at all, my guts are tied in knots. Of course he has a point-- to know your enemy is a primary tactic of resistance. But everything in me wants to keep him safe, to protect him. And this is sending him into the open mouth to be eaten. 

>Ben, this is a bad idea. I know it could have benefits, but--

> _ You don’t trust me, do you? _

>A sting. He’s reckless, our Ben. He’s like his father that way. But his heart is good, too. I trust that, but I don’t know if I trust it enough to put him alone in a cave full of wolves.

>It’s First Order I don’t trust! They always make nice before they close the trap. 

> _ It’s a six month program, Luke. I won’t even be there that long, and who knows what kind of intel I could come back with!  _

>I’m serious. This is too much, you’re too vulnerable--

> _ I can handle myself!  _

>He’s angry, it’s palpable even to my tech-riddled bones. It makes me angry, too.

>You’ve never been in a place like that, Ben. You have no idea what you’re walking into!

> _ And you do? _

>Yes. I do. Or have you forgotten what happened to Empire Corps?

> _ This isn’t the same thing.  _

>It’s not very different, either. You need to stay here and finish your training.

> _ I need to use this opportunity, Uncle. It might never happen again. _

>If you take it before you’re ready, it won’t matter. 

> _ I’m ready! I have the Force! _

>You have it, but you haven’t learned how to use it!

> _ But I-- _

>You’re not going. Forget it. 

> _ Uncle-- _

>Ben. 

>I glare at him, and he glares back. But only for a moment, because then he turns and marches right out the door he just entered through, slamming it loudly. Another noise comes muffled from down the hall. I blink, and turn to put my hands on the work table and shut my eyes. He struggles with rejection, and I can’t blame him. I hope he will get over it, but somewhere in my darkest part I fear I am wrong.

>end recording

>save to ROM?

>file saved


	27. collaboration

Crouching inside the shadow of a dark alley, under rattling fire escape stairs, Finn’s chest heaved as he sucked in precious air. His blaster was in his hand, and he was pressed against the concrete wall.

“That was stupid,” he hissed, barely turning his head back towards the much larger figure behind him.

**It would have worked if you’d stayed at your mark.**

“You don’t give me orders!” 

**In an anarchist structure there are no orders, only collaboration which you have failed at thus far this evening.** Now his dark eyes spun back to glare at the strange, featureless face of the Slymicon. 

“Don’t patronize me. We’re supposed to be on a mission!”

**Indeed we are. You should duck.** He raised his blaster, and Finn nearly jumped before he spun around and saw the real target-- and ducked just in time to watch a streak of orange fly towards a dark figure. A very human yelp issued from under their mask, which left only eyes visible, and they lunged towards the two Resistance members. 

“Now you’ve done it!” As one, Finn and SB-FU turned and sprinted. The ex-corporate was quick, but the Slymi’s long legs took him as though to outrun the wind. Finn was about to shout something about leaving him behind when he saw the gigantic, pale creature stop suddenly and leap up along the wall only to turn around and make right back towards him, the claws of his non-cybernetic foot sinking into the concrete to keep him running sideways. SB leveled his blaster and took another shot at the Requisitions officer, who dodged it but only just. 

**Take my hand.** Its strange voice always rumbled in Finn’s head and seemed way too calm for literally any given situation, but especially this one. One massive clawed hand reached out, and Finn stretched to take it and was jerked bodily from the ground, towed along through the air like a ragdoll as the creature just kept on running up the wall.

“Fuck you, you fascist prick!” the ex-corporate shouted as he pointed the blaster in his other hand behind them at their pursuer, and managed to land a shot on their shoulder. 

**I really thought you were talking to me for a moment.**

“You’re a prick, but you’re not a fascist.” Finn scowled. At this, SB-FU dropped him unceremoniously-- onto a roof, which the Slymi then leapt onto himself. 

**Is the Req officer dead?**

“I doubt it, and reinforcements are coming any minute. We should fall back and regroup with Rey and Poe, see if we stand half a chance with all four of us.” Already he was turning to stride along the roof away from their pursuer. 

**One of my own, or other officers?** SB was striding along as well, his heavy footsteps twice as slow as Finn’s. 

“Normally other officers, but they’ve seen you now so who knows. Which is specifically why I said you should  _ not _ come--” But SB had turned on his heel and was marching right back towards the warehouse. 

**If seeing me makes the officer a threat to us, then we should kill them.**

“No, wait! Fuck--” Finn growled and huffed as he turned to follow his headstrong companion. A series of blaster shots resounded through the street ahead, and he began to sprint. 

\-----

“That was easy,” Rey said through her heavy breaths as she strode over the roof of another warehouse, some 15 kilometers from the other half of her team. Poe trudged along beside her; both were carrying large metal cases strapped to their backs. 

“Almost too easy, right? I mean I know this is an old one, but shit.” He kept glancing around, searching for any sign of an enemy. 

“Maybe we should just take the easy ones when they come, Poe.” Rey wiped the sweat beading on her forehead with her hand. “I wonder how Finn and SB are managing.” 

“Yanno, a mission isn’t the best time to make two kids who don’t get along hug it out,” Poe replied with a frown. “Leia said this one was important, like extra important.”

“If they have the same goal, they should be smart enough to figure it out. Maybe they’ll learn to respect one another. It’s not like they don’t come from the same place--”

Red letters appeared at the corner of her eye, and her cheerful countenance fell. It was an alert from her oculus.

“Respect one another, huh?” Poe asked dryly. 

“Shit.” They both took off towards their parked speeder.

\-----

When they arrived at the other warehouse, one corpse was already on the ground. Rey tore over towards it, panic in her throat. 

“Finn!” But when she stooped down, it wasn’t Finn. It was a Requisitions officer, crumpled and gutted with his mask still on in the bleary yellow light. “Oh, shit. Thank the Maker.”

“Look!” Poe pointed up towards the top of the fire escape, which was torn into ribbons of steel grate. Rey dashed up the stairs immediately. “No, Rey-- fuck!” But she was already there, half a story beneath the roof before further ascent became impossible. 

“Stay down there!” she shouted, and before he could protest he saw her jump ten feet in the air and grab the corner of the roof, growling with the effort of hauling herself up. The pilot blinked, startled. 

“Holy shit.” Then she vanished over the edge, and his frustration rose right back up where it belonged. Running over to the ground floor entrance, he pushed and pulled at it just to see. Of course, it was locked. “Oh, fuck me, man!” 

Suddenly and with a godawful squeal of rusted hinges, the door flew open and Finn appeared, clutching another metal case. 

“Not right now, babe,” he wheezed, and thrust the thing into his lover’s arms. “Here, I got you this!” He spun around and pulled out his blaster, fired it three times into the warehouse which engulfed the shots in blackness until they ricocheted off Maker knows what. More shots resounded inside to unknown ends.

“What the hell happened?” Poe insisted, straining to see inside as his oculus was still taking in too much light from the sallow streetlamps to activate night-vision. 

“That fuckin’ Slymi--”

**Saved you.** SB had appeared around the corner with Rey on his enormous shoulder like a bird, holding two more cases with ease. 

“Whee!” Rey laughed. “Now let’s blow this chip joint!” 

**Before more officers, or worse, arrive.**

“The other two are dead?” Finn asked as he and Poe fell in line, heading back towards their getaway shuttle.

“Yeah, I got one from the roof exhaust port.” Rey beamed down at him. 

**I took care of the other one.**

“Thanks SB,” Poe said, a little louder than necessary, shooting Finn a look. “That woulda taken a lot longer without your help.” The ex-corporate beside him huffed.

“Yeah, thanks.” Quiet and a little reluctant, but still. From her perch, Rey smirked triumphantly. 

**You are most welcome, friend Finn and friend Poe.** SB tucked each of the cases under his arms, which even under his pale silica-skin were blue-ish and massively muscled, just like the rest of him. His cybernetic leg and the pieces that connected the arm he’d almost lost were still clean and new, except for a faint splatter of very fresh blood-- and a little sticker, a colorful image of a character from a kid’s cartoon, on his thigh. He strode slowly to keep pace with his smaller companions.

“I think Leia will be quite proud of you, SB.” Rey rubbed the back of his neck in her sweet way, and the boys who loved her glanced at each other as if to share in their mutual adoration. 

**That is kind of you, friend Rey.** There was a moment of quiet before the desert girl leaned in towards where the barely-perceptible opening that was SB’s ear was.

“Don’t worry, I think he secretly likes you,” she whispered.

“Hey! No secret one-person-only telepathy or whatever!” Finn protested. Rey just laughed. 

“Don’t get your wires in a knot!” 

For the first time, SB’s lips curled into a little smile. 


	28. almost

The Millennium Hotel was the kind of place that hosted tech conferences, major business functions, and club meetings of the most upper class variety. It had a gravity chandelier in the lobby, a dining room, an exotic spirits bar. It was dripping with its own opulence, sleek and cold as its guests.

Kylo hated it, but it was a perfect place to buy your date a stunning meal, a beautiful cocktail. It was a perfect place for him to be nondescript, with bureaucrats moving through it at lightspeed and taking every inch of the building entirely for granted, noticing nothing. Sure, he would have preferred someplace empty, where he wouldn’t have to push other people’s thoughts away. But for now, he’d settle for being lost in the crowd.

He’d booked a room, of course, just as a precaution. Lingered in it, arriving far too early in the day, watching the city breathe below his window. He passed through the lobby every hour or so, eyed the bar. Something inside him was chiding him for being so fixated, but he wondered if this wasn’t actually a fully natural thing that humans had simply blunted in their scramble to augment themselves.

She arrived very late in the evening, well past dinner. He’d finally decided to sit at the bar, ordered a drink and was sipping it when he saw her. Hazel eyes wandered all around the lobby, up to the chandelier, and finally towards the bar before they lit on him. He watched her approach in her black jumpsuit and gray vest-- the collar of the suit slid down in a long V that dragged his eyes down the rest of her body mercilessly.

“You came.” Truth be told, he was almost surprised.

“I did.” By the look on her face, he thought she might’ve been surprised, too.

“Can I get you something?” he asked, turning on his stool away from the bar and towards her. 

“I’m… well. Maybe.” She half-smiled at him, and he smirked back. “Like I said, I don’t drink much.” 

“I don’t much either, but it seemed like the occasion for it. Whether you showed up or not.” 

“Ah, of course.” The smirk that grew on her face slapped extra beats into the rhythm of his heart. She waved the barkeep down, ordered a beer. “So, did we come here to… talk, again?” 

“If you like.”

“About what?” Her beer arrived, and it was at that moment that Kylo became aware of how open the bar was. So, he beckoned to her with a finger and slid off his stool. She followed him to a booth that was tucked into the wall like a cubby, a rounded one that was warmly lit inside and a little off in the corner. 

“You say you’re not from Coruscant, yet you seem to be spending time here recently,” he began as they slid around the table on the spacious cushions. The bar outside their little bubble grew dim, a privacy shield feature that was built into all the booths where pockets that deep regularly moved through them. 

“Well, it’s all business. This isn’t the sort of place I’d visit for fun.”

“No?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I like quieter places. Richer histories. I’ve tried to view a little more art, since we first met,” she replied with a grin. “More interesting things than simple vices, I suppose.”

“Oh, alright. Above such petty delights, are you?” 

“No,” she laughed. “They just don’t affect me the same way that learning or experiencing new things does. I was sheltered as a child, my father was… protective.” She sipped her beer.

“What sort of new things would you like to experience?” He watched her face closely, full of curiosity.

“I think, right now, I’m most interested in art and… religion, I suppose. Spirituality. Transcendence. Whatever.” She shrugged. “I don’t have much experience there at all. And the gallery at Supremacy Spire was my first time looking-- really  _ looking-- _ at art.” 

“I could show you the rest of the gallery sometime,” he mused. “Or, there are beautiful galleries in Corellia and Hosnian Prime. For the spirit, though, there’s really no place like Jedha.” 

“You mentioned Jedha before. I’ve only read about the Jedi religion.”

“The religion of that city ran much deeper than the Jedi.” His eyes glinted. “Many people prayed there. Its destruction by Empire Corps was considered a tragedy.” 

“I've heard. Was it intentional?” 

“There’s still some debate about that. I know the Jedi and Empire were not ideologically matched. I think, more likely than not, Empire was just negligent of its operations there, which meant the water contamination blossomed too quickly to do anything but remove the citizens who weren’t already ill.” He shifted, sliding just a little closer to her. “But you can still feel it there, in the stones themselves.” 

“Feel what?” She was rapt, now, her eyes bright with interest.

“The prayer. The holy power of the city. And the Force that they prayed to, too.” 

“Are you a believer, then?” He wasn’t disarmed by her question, more by the total lack of disdain in her voice when she asked it. 

“I am,” he replied after a pause. He wondered if it was a belief if he  _ knew _ it was true.

“And what does that mean, to you? What does the Force mean?” 

Had Luke Skywalker ever even asked him such a question?

“It means freedom. It means things are born, they grow, and they die, but their energy remains the same throughout the process. Energy that can be moved, shifted. That energy connects all of us. On every level of every city, out past the rim, deep into the earth. Between all things. Between you,” his voice lowered, “and me.” Her face was slowly getting closer as he leaned and she looked up at him, fascinated. 

“Is that what this is?” she murmured. 

“I dunno, what is this exactly?” His smirk was back, but his eyes probed hers. 

“I… it’s hard to explain.”

“Try.” He wanted desperately to hear one single thing about what she was thinking. Her mind was so quiet.

“I feel…” But she paused, glanced away for a moment. “Right now. I feel like I’m  _ alive. _ Like I’m burning. And I’m not sure if it’s a good thing.” 

“I know what you mean,” he said softly. Maker, did he know what she meant. Hazel eyes slid back up to his now, and he felt his heart start to beat just a little harder. “But I don’t know what would make it a bad thing, either.”

“Maybe…” Her eyes flicked down to his lips, and he knew right then that whatever could go wrong, at this moment he was going to follow his gut as far as it would take him. He would find out why he was so drawn to her if he possibly could. 

“What?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Maybe you could take me there, one day. To the holy city. I could go myself, but I’d rather see it through your eyes.” 

“I could take you there right now,” he cooed. “The sky is clearer above Jedha at night, did you know that?” 

“It is? Why?” 

“The nanofog doesn’t filter the air because no one lives there. But some say the Force is what lets you see that many stars despite how close it is to the core.” This seemed to awe her just a little.

“I’ve only ever seen a few stars out at once. How many can you see there?” 

“Hundreds of thousands,” he replied. “It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, present company excluded.” At that she closed her eyes, her cheeks flushed beneath scattered freckles, and she smiled.

“You’re very charming, you know,” she said. “On top of everything else.”

“Oh good. I was trying very much to charm you.”

“Why’s that?” Her face turned back up towards him again, coy, and he was even closer. Fingers reached out to trace her cheek. 

“Because you enthrall me.” At that her smile fell away, but her blush didn’t. Her chest seemed to rise and fall a little more plainly beneath her open vest. Unwilling to put it off any longer under the guise of formality, he leaned down to kiss her.

The second time was even more electrifying than the first. Maybe because there had been what felt like an aeon between the two, or because he’d been so preoccupied. This time he started more gently, and let her open to him until she drew his tongue into her mouth, teasing it with her own in lazy, indulgent motions. Kylo’s body was charged, alight with the desire that seemed to pulse through them in unison. Feeling her breath hitch under his fingers as he ran them down her neck, her hand pressing against his chest, their legs touching on the cushion-- he wanted to feel every part of her. 

When lips finally broke apart, trembling, their faces still remained close.

“What are you doing to me?” she breathed. 

“Only the same thing you’re doing to me.” Her hand was in his hair; one of his slid down around her waist. Running his nose along hers, letting their mouths hover close, he began to ease her back down onto her back on the cushion. As her head laid gently on it, he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pressed his lips into the place between her jaw and her ear. The sound of her drawing in a breath and letting it out with a soft sound filled him with fire, and he cherished the visceral response of his body that moved him as powerfully as his anger so often did. 

Gently he kissed down to her clavicle, sucking her skin into his mouth just a little all the way. One of her hands slid up his muscular arm, the other slid under his collar to touch his back beneath the fabric. He smirked into her breastbone before dragging his lips down the V in her jumpsuit, then dragging them back up so he could claim her mouth again. Now she was less hesitant, suckling on his lower lip as her nails gently, almost curiously bit into his flesh. He felt himself getting hard, the purity of his biology making itself impossible to ignore. 

Through the fabric of her jumpsuit, beneath the vest, he trailed a fingertip experimentally over one of her nipples. Her gasp was music to his ears. 

“Ooooh,” she sighed softly. “That’s nice…”

“Is it?”

“Yes.” Now he pushed the fabric up to slip his hand beneath it, to touch that sensitive skin directly. She arched her back, and his eyes took in her face as her mouth opened and her eyes slid shut. “Oh--!”

“You're a sensitive little thing.” He marveled at how much so, thinking of Hux and his apparent need for force before he felt a response. But she made no reply, only long, deep breaths and a quiet moan as he switched to put his hand under her jumpsuit and stroke the other one. Watching her succumb to her own body for a moment was breathtaking. The things he wanted to do next, though, part of him felt he shouldn’t do in a privacy booth in a hotel bar. Even if plenty of other patrons did. It felt disrespectful, somehow. He withdrew his hand to run it over her ribs, to press his hunger into her with his fingertips.

“Maker,” she sighed, glancing up at their forgotten drinks on the table. Her face was flushed. “I’ve never felt…”

“Me neither.” Not like this. He’d been so far away from that real, guts-deep feeling for so long. It was stunning, to touch someone who wanted him the same way he wanted them. Not augmented, strained, repressed desires. She was leaning her head back, eyes seeking his again.

“I don’t know if this is sustainable,” she murmured, one hand lingering against his chest as though she was reluctant to push him away.

“What’s not sustainable?” His brow furrowed.

“I feel like this every time I even  _ think _ of you. I have responsibilities, I have a life, I have a job.” She shook her head. “This is… distracting.”

“It might be less distracting if we stopped avoiding it,” he suggested. 

“Are you sure it wouldn’t just get worse?” He just looked at her a moment, heart sinking, because he wasn’t actually sure. In this bleak world of plastic and steel, her vital energy could become addictive. And he had a job to do, too. He sat back upright, away from her.

“I don’t want to push you into anything you’re unwilling to do,” he sighed. 

“I believe you.” She rose back to seating, met his eyes, and her face softened. For a moment he didn’t think she would say anything more, but then she spoke again. “Soon, you could take me to see this holy city of yours, with all its hundreds of thousands of stars.”

“Would you like that?” He almost smiled.

“I would.” She almost smiled back. 


	29. transcript - log 31.10

>//server/LAN/system/library/target/kylo/data/history/file:oBAL33xABY.vid

>recorded [date redacted], 31.10 Anarawd Togh

>transcribed by  Ph|2/\k+a|_

>buffering…

>key:

>password accepted

>notes: AT is someone I believe you will meet in the flesh sooner than later, but for now here is his testimony to Ben’s early life. He’s a bit of a chiphead sometimes, but there’s a lot of skill and a lot of heart under his armor.

>transcription begins

>Well, I guess I knew Ben since he was born, technically. I knew his parents before that. Actually, it was Han that talked me into comin’ to you, Lobo, for my augs. The ones I needed after I jumped ship workin’ for fuckin’ Voss. 

>he takes a drink

>Next time I saw Han, he’d been in with these guys trying to hackerjack Empire! Never thought I’d see the day. 

>he laughs

>Anyhow, I met Leia, I kept my damn mouth shut. We didn’t see each other after that until I heard Ben was on the way. He was a pretty baby, you know? Big brown eyes, takin’ everything in. 

>he pauses

>Anyway, I did stop workin’ for Voss after they treated me bad enough. But I never got my shit together. I was a mess. By the time I joined Mandalore, I was at my wit’s end. They shoulda kicked me out the first week, t’be honest. But one ‘o them, she saw something in me I didn’t-- reckon sometimes I still don’t. Either way, it’s there enough that I learned somethin’, finally. When I talked to Han after that, I didn’t tell him who I’d gotten in with. He holds the Mandalorians a grudge. I reckon anybody would, who’d been hunted by one and delivered right into Hutt territory after gettin’ frozen in VR. 

>he pauses

>he takes a drink

>I stayed checkin’ in with them. I came to see Ben sometimes, too-- that was in Corellia, back when they lived there. I still bunk there most ‘o the time, when I bunk anywhere. But the LAN was just getting started in those days, and it was anybody’s fight taking over after Empire fell apart. Han was with Ben all the time when he was tiny. It was kinda weird, seeing the ol’ scoundrel holding a baby. But he loved Ben so much it scared him, I think.

>he looks away

>So he spent a lot of time trying to round up jobs and runnin’ off on them. Leia spent a lot of time trying to work on the network, pulling in everyone left from Empire’s fallout. She never stopped trying to fight the power. I tried to sell her on a company idea, 100% employee owned just like Mandalore-- we’re the only ones who still do that, by the way, and it sure seems to work, don’t it?-- but she wasn’t hearing that. She doesn’t ‘believe’ in business. Whatever that means. 

>he rolls his eyes

>But she loved Ben, too. They were both so worried ‘bout the world he was gonna inherit, they forgot the world he was actually living in, I think. All I know is, he run off to school… and then he run off to FO.

>he takes a drink

>I’m not even drunk yet, Lobo, just calm down! It ain’t fun to think about this stuff, okay? Anyhow, about Ben. He was a bright kid. Stubborn, and sometimes he made a mess just to get someone to pay attention to him. He never liked bein’ told what to do. He had a good heart, though. He broke something one time when I was playin’ with him-- not even something important, I don’t think. Some little piece of his mom’s jewelry, she didn’t have a lot. And he cried, and asked me to help him put it back together and make it even prettier so his mom would know he was really truly sorry. 

>he laughs

>I told him, I said kiddo, your mom doesn’t even wear jewelry all that much. She won’t be upset, it was just a little accident. But he insisted on fixing it, and he did make it up prettier, hell I think she kept it just ‘cuz he tried so hard. He used to go pick up the neighbor’s tech recycling, and pick through it for shit his uncle needed, and then go take what was left to the cycle dump. They were too poor for droid pick-up. He said he might as well run it there for them, if he was gonna pillage it for scraps. 

>he shakes his head

>he finished his drink

>Oh, Lobo. I dunno what happened. I remember him being such a sweet kid. He wanted to fly like his dad, and hack like his mom, and I taught him to shoot, actually. He wouldn’t even shoot vermin, at first, just the little clay targets. Didn’t wanna shoot a womp rat, how’s that for a soft heart? But he grew up, I guess. Felt lonely, and maybe a lotta pressure considering who his parents are. I saw him a lot less after school started. I can’t help but wonder how they got to his head. 

>he glances to the side

>That’s really the best I got, Lobo. Yeah, alright. I’ll see ya later.

>transcription ends


	30. debrief

Poe was lying on his back in the bed he shared with his two lovers, still catching his breath. Sweat seeped from his pores, left his skin salty with release. Beside him, Rey and Finn were also sprawled, a mess of limbs and thudding hearts and heavy eyelids. 

“Did one of us get buzzed just now, or am I hearin’ shit?” the pilot asked, eyes unfocused still. 

“I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t paying attention.” Rey was smirking at him; one of her pale hands ran a path down his arm. “I was  _ really _ distracted.”

“Yeah you were,” grinned Finn, giving her ass a squeeze and placing a kiss on her dewy temple. She giggled.

“I really thought I heard something, guys.” Poe was frowning. “I wanna know if I’m crazy. Cuz I’m lookin’ at my inbox right now, and it’s empty.” His right eye flashed red as his oculus showed him no new notifications. 

“You think it could be that important?” Finn looked quizzical, one eyebrow raised. 

“Babe, just do me a favor and look?” Glancing down at the desert girl, Poe implored with his eyes. “And you too, little mouse.”

“Fine,” the ex-corporate sighed, and his oculus flashed red, too. “I got nothing.”

“Neither me,” Rey added, her eye following suit. 

“I don’t like that I’m hearing that shit, now. Feels like I musta forgot something important.” Poe sat upright on the rumpled sheets, scratching his scruffy cheek. Finn’s palm came out to rub his shoulder gently. 

“It’s okay. You’re just anxious.”

“Yeah, considering there’s been three checkpoints lost the past three weeks.” Rey eyed the slim, beautiful musculature of Poe’s back and stroked it instinctively-- the skin around her was so familiar, now, unlike any other familiarity. 

“That’s definitely not helping, no.” But the pilot was pensive, and the memory of the ring he’d ignored while he and his lovers were otherwise occupied had come back to him awfully fast as he was supposed to be awash in post-coital bliss. 

“Maybe it’s something important that’s  _ about _ to happen,” Finn suggested, stretching out on the bed. “Sometimes I get that, a weird sense that something’s coming, and then it just does.” 

“I don’t get that.” Poe’s face stayed a little taut at the jaw. “Like ever.” 

“That’s weird, because now I’m getting it.” Finn’s eyes darted around the room, as though something was wrong but he couldn't figure what. “Just a feeling. Like maybe a message--”

_ Chuurp. _ Rey’s face was frozen as the notification rang gently from Poe’s datapad. She glanced up at Finn, who was just staring at the thing with a frown. 

“Shit.” Poe got up and retrieved the datapad from his desk. “It’s from the Spectre. Did you know it was gonna be her, too?” 

“Uh,” Finn stammered. “No.” But he glanced at Rey, and the desert girl eyed him. She’d known the datapad was going to notify Poe of a message, too, but these are the thoughts that psions learn to keep to themselves. But Finn appeared just as confused as if he knew nothing about psionics. Which, to her knowledge, he didn’t. 

“Hey asshole.” Poe put the datapad down so the projection of Spectre’s head could peer out at him, and went to pull a cigarette from his drawer by the bed.

“You’re such a chiphead, Hot-Dameron. Trying to put me on the defensive right off the bat like I don’t have Arrpee sitting right next to me on this ship most every day.” A tight, irritated simulation of a smirk crept over the corner of her mouth. Rey knew she could only see Poe’s head-- that was how the transmission worked-- so she sat upright despite her nudity to peer at the other woman’s face. The same face, the same rings in her eyebrows, but now her hair was pink, and the unshaved part was longer. Her lips were painted black. Fascination struck the desert girl again, just as it had before. 

“What do you want?” The pilot took a drag, then handed the wrap to Rey. 

“I’m s’posed to debrief you on this whole disposal thing.” 

“So?” 

“We had to fall back on plan Z, basically.”

“What’s plan Z?” Finn muttered, eyeing Poe as he took the cigarette from the scavenger who didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“So you dumped it? In the ocean?” Poe was rubbing his forehead.

“Yeah. It should be free of prints, though. And its data is wrecked for sure.” She seemed certain enough. “We tried to douse it before we chucked it. Just to be certain. Got most of it. Ocean prolly took the rest.”

“Thanks for that.” A plume of gray smoke rioted from his mouth as he spoke, finally exhaling. 

“Should you be smoking underground?” One pierced eyebrow was raised.

“This place has better ventilation than the damn bubble itself,” Poe growled, taking the wrap back from Finn. “Don’t give me shit, Voss. At least I don’t vape.” 

“Is vaping a problem?

“Yeah, it’ll give you a fuckin’ lung disease, yanno.”

“And smoking won’t? Anyway,” she said as she rolled her eyes, “there’s something else I thought you might wanna know.”

“What’s that?” 

“There’s been some, ah, rumors that First Order’s experimenting with biotech.”

Poe coughed out the deep inhale of smoke he’d just tried to take. 

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” 

“What does that mean?” Rey whispered to Finn, who only shrugged. 

“Where’d these rumors come from, exactly?” Poe seemed skeptical.

“Aside from the fact that Slymicons exist and sheer speculation? I dunno. Just what I heard.” Her face was opaque, and psions couldn’t divine the thoughts of other people over the fractured data of a hologram. “I just thought you might wanna investigate.”

“Since when you informing the LAN of shit like this, Sera?” asked the pilot, grinning.

“I’m informing  _ you _ of this,” she replied, and even over the screen her eyes were sharp. “I ain’t the boss of you, of course.”

“I mean, sure, but you just took our money, so I had to ask.” He strode over the to screen, hand reaching down to the X button. “Thanks for the tip.”

“See ya around, flyboy.” The call ended with a tiny click. Poe turned back towards the others, smirk on his face. 

“She’ll end up here before long, I’m tellin’ you. I’d put money on it.” 

“So what was she talking about, exactly?” Finn raised an eyebrow and reached out to beckon the cigarette back between his fingers. 

“You know what biotech is, right?”

“No,” Rey piped up. 

“It’s growing flesh parts in labs.” The pilot sighed, and seemed to look into his own thoughts. “Like real flesh parts. From real human cells. Folks been trying to do it for ages, nobody ever had any luck.”

“What’s wrong with that, exactly?” She was so naive it was refreshing, Poe thought.

“Sources of the cells are dubiously ethical at best. All the old guys at the cantina in Corellia used to say they thought it would ‘purify’ the human race. I think the technophobe aspect is the worst part, t’be honest. I never thought Snoke was a fuckin’ bio-purist, since his company literally sells augs. But why else sink so much money into testing something like that-- assuming it’s even true?” He rubbed his forehead, and Finn let out tendrils of smoke from his nostrils.

“You know,” the ex-corporate mused, “we could try to find out.”

“How?” Rey eyed him-- she didn’t like what she had a feeling she was about to hear.

“A certain somebody who  _ really _ wants to talk to you.” 

“Oh yeah, sure,” she growled, “I’ll just call up Kylo Ren for a fuckin’ chat then, shall I?”

“We could take some safety measures--”

“No, Finn, that’s not funny.” Now she frowned at him, and prickles of her anger seemed to dance around the room. 

“Listen, not with what we got already, we can’t make sure you’re safe. But I know somebody with a network key.” Poe was giving her that look-- the look of a scoundrel who’s trying to charm you into a higher price, and Maker if you weren’t really thinking about it. 

“ _ Who? _ ” Finn was incredulous. 

“Somebody we ran into at Maz’s place.” 

“The Mandalorian? How are you gonna hit up one of those guys? And what if it’s not the right one? Or did you somehow magic them in to giving you their IP?” Finn was awfully interested, for someone who was volleying such doubtful questions. 

“Will you just let me figure that shit out?” Poe waved him off. “I won’t even ask you to go, Rey, unless we have that key. So if I fuck up, then chips are off the table. But if I get it, I can make sure you’re safe, even if you walk into Supremacy Spire in the flesh.” 

Rey looked at him, her body stiff with memories of Kylo Ren. They were too many as it was, and all bad. But something in her guts reminded her that he was still Han and Leia’s son, and the look on Luke’s face when he spoke of Ben lingered in her mind like a hungry ghost.

“If you get the key, maybe I’ll think about it.” The grins on her boys’ faces were a balm, of sorts, on the deep sense of trouble this development brought her. But perhaps her nerves simply remembered the sting of his saber, which she’d managed to avoid since their first encounter. Which Luke had slowly been teaching her to confront.

“Knew we could count on you, little mouse!” Poe was excited, and he gripped her face between his hands and laid a kiss on her lips with fervor before he strode off towards the refresher. “I’m takin’ a shower! Anyone’s invited!” 

Finn turned to look at her, and it didn’t take long for his tender worry to make itself plain on his face. 

“You never have to agree to this, you know. But I still have the tower codes, and if we get a key we’re golden. Hell, you could try to kill Kylo while you’re in there, if you think of a way to do it real quick.” 

“Let’s map those drives when and if we get to them,” the red dirt girl replied, glancing away from him. He had a point. She could try to kill him... or she could try something else. For Leia’s sake, and Han’s. But then there was a big, warm hand on hers, and Finn was drawing her off the bed towards the refresher. 

“Come on,” he urged softly. “Don’t worry about it.”

The sunbright glow of skin-to-skin contact that had been knocked from her face by crowded thoughts almost began to return, if only at the prospect of the water and the warmth of bodies and the sanctuary she’d found between them. So, she followed.


	31. created

Inside the hangar bay of the Jakku base at night, it was usually even darker than the outside unless someone was about. This didn’t matter to Jupiter, of course, with her eyes as able to adapt to darkness as they were. So she sat in the pitch, facing backwards on top of one of the mules and letting a strange sensation eddy through her like a current. Her empathy algorithm was unable to settle, the nano-filaments of her wiring fairly vibrating. 

“Humans are so baffling sometimes,” she murmured to herself. 

**I know what you mean.** Her head whipped around, and she twisted her body to disappear behind the mule in one fluid movement.

“I don’t know how you got in here,” she growled over the machine, laser-edged knife already in her hand, “but you won’t get out.” 

**I do not intend to get out. This is my home.**

“What?” Her quizzical brow appeared above the seat of the mule. With her powerful ocular processors, she saw plainly in the inky blackness where a nine-foot tall creature of a kind she had killed before was standing, looking at her.

**I live here. My loft is above.**

“You’re a Slymicon.”

**Very astute.** Now she frowned. 

“Listen, after today, I don’t know what my systems are doing anymore. I thought I might be…” Oh. She wasn’t supposed to speak of herself like a machine. “...dreaming, or something.”

**I am awake, so I think it is safe to assume you are, as well. I am SB-FU. I was brought here some time ago and healed after my escape from Supremacy Spire.** Slowly, Jupiter rose from her temporary cover. She was officially interested.

“You escaped? How?”

**It seems I leapt through the window, during a party. I do not recall much.** At that, she almost chuckled. 

“Wow. I’m sorry I missed that one. Did Lobo patch you up?” 

**Yes, very kindly. I was brought here by a man called Han Solo and a… thing… called Chewie.** By now, she’d walked around the mule and slid her knife back into its sheath inside her boot. Her approach was slow, still cautious. 

“Chewbacca? He’s a Wookie. I’ve never met him. Is he as tall as you?” She grinned. 

**No, but he is taller than a human.**

“Interesting.” Her eyes scanned him up and down, taking in the rather overwhelming sight of his body. The Slymicons on the streets were always in jumpsuits. SB-FU was stark naked, human-like except for his stature, his strange nearly-featureless face, and his feet which were more like large claws-- or, the one he had left, at least. She’d seen those things crunch concrete, dig into steel. And bless it, but she couldn’t help but notice the strange mound where his genitals should have been. The data she’d processed in her base memory banks included human anatomy, of course, and now she wondered exactly how  _ that _ was different for a Slymi. His cybernetic leg and part of his arm were also plastered with what looked like colorful stickers, all kinds of them.

It took her a moment to realize that he was looking her over as intently as she was him, both eyeing the other with the precision of a hunter and the curiosity of a stranger. 

**You only appear human.**

“What makes you say that?”

**Your body mimics a human body almost perfectly, from what is presently visible. But even a human with a-- what is it called? An** **_oculus_ ** **could not see me so clearly as you, in this darkness.**

“Oh. Well, you got me there,” she murmured, slightly embarrassed. She was supposed to be indistinguishable from a human. Then again, a  _ human _ wouldn't be able to tell how clearly she saw in the dark, only another thing whose eyes were designed. “So, you live… in here?”

**I cannot walk through the rest of the base. The tunnels are not made for my height. My dwelling is far enough up to keep from troubling the craft that move through this hangar bay.** He pointed up, and she glanced briefly. 

“You have your own room?” She thought of her dock in Lobo’s lab, the alcove she re-charged inside of. The slice in the wall that was the closest thing to home she had.

**Would you like to see?**

“Sure,” she grinned. 

**I can take you. You will have to hold onto me.** He knelt and turned his non-metal shoulder to her. Jupiter carefully stepped from the floor up onto his massive quadricep, leaned across his back to wrap her arms around his neck. And then, he jumped.

It took her a blink to realize just how high they went before he landed with surprising lightness on a walking grate that hung almost two stories above the ground. Then he jumped again-- and jumped once more, before they landed on a platform some twelve feet from the roof. On it, she could make out a handful of things, mostly a gigantic nest of a bed and a computer that was dark at the moment. She was giggling, she realized; it must have been reflexive from the thrill of moving that far up that quickly. 

Gently, the massive creature knelt once again to allow her to drop easily off his back and onto her feet. Then SB-FU rose and walked over to an outlet that was by his computer’s terminal. To her surprise-- and delight-- he turned on a string of glimmering little lights that clustered along the wall, over the bed like fireflies frozen in flight.

“Wow,” she said, looking at them with a smile she could barely contain. “You’ve got star-lights!”

**They were installed by friend Rey.** He turned back to face her, plopped down without further ado onto the end of the mattress. It was funny to see a creature that fearsome and strange move casually, like a teenager in his room. 

“Friend Rey?” 

**Have you not met any of the others?**

“Um, no.” She glanced to the side, for the first time acutely aware of just how classified her objective really was. “I’m… I have a job that keeps me from talking to many people here.” 

**You do not seem pleased.** Now she glanced up at him, and despite his lack of features she could almost sense the curiosity and twinge of concern from him.

“Never thought about it much before. I’ve mainly been focused on my work.” She decided to sink down and sit cross-legged on the floor facing him, so she could see more of the lights behind and above them.

**I have as well, but my work brings me close to others. Some droids, but mostly humans.** SB shook his head a little.  **I find them very difficult to understand, some more than others.**

“I don’t know if I understand any of them,” the girl sighed. “But they elicit such strong responses in me.”

**How so?** Now he canted his head, and she smiled a little at the motion.

“I desire very much to please my creator by completing my work. He gives me as much as he can, all sorts of information and history and data. But for others I have felt such a strong desire to fight, or to avoid--” she thought of Leia, who held a particular tension in her jaw around Jupiter-- “or… or to touch. And be touched by. That one I find most confusing of all.”

**Humans require touch to regulate their psychophysiological systems. Perhaps you are simply designed to mimic them so closely as to crave it, too.** He rested his elbows on his knees, and she smiled a little again. Watching him mimic certain human postures was funny. Once, she had done the same thing.

“Perhaps. It’s not explicitly in my programming, though.” 

**You are a droid?**

“Lobo says I’m about a trillion times more complicated than a droid,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He says it quite a lot, actually.” 

**Lobo built you.** This time it wasn’t a question, more of a realization. She nodded.  **Then we are both wearing the same skin, are we not?** He reached out one huge hand, palm facing her. Eyeing it with a crease in her brow, she slowly reached out hers as well. 

Though what was beneath his made his skin tone pale and icy, and what was beneath hers made her warm as the setting sun, she realized that they were both indeed wrapped in silica. It would be almost impossible to tell from real skin, unless you cut it and then peeled it apart from itself. The web inside was what kept it elastic, made it cling to whatever it was framed to. A network of six-pointed flowers, like the seed of life; a strange mimicry of nature that refused to obey its laws by sagging or wrinkling. But her ocular processors, powerful as they were, saw the impossibly minute texture that set it apart from human skin. She pressed her hand against his, and marveled for a moment at just how small she seemed. Her fingertips barely reached over the perimeter of his palm. 

“Yeah. I heard they don’t give you a skin unless you qualify for servitude,” she murmured, fascinated at the gentle heat that ebbed through from him, and the whisper of a heartbeat she felt. It seemed as alive as any human body. 

**Servitude. I had not heard it put that way. But it is correct.** Large fingers curled down over her hand, wrapping it in warmth. She saw that he was smiling a little at her.  **Are you designed to crawl through ventilation? You are smaller than friend Rey.** She smirked at him, tugging her hand away in false indignation. 

“I’m meant to disappear when I must.”

**That, I cannot say I relate to.** His smile broadened, and she saw a few teeth; mostly human, but the canines were… large. She eyed the strange little line, like a recessed scar, that ran down the center of his bottom lip and continued until it vanished beneath his chin in a very neat, straight line. But then, this Slymi was covered in scars. And it only served to make his lips seem fuller, almost more prominent due to the lack of other features to distract from them. Lobo had sculpted them well; the rest of his skin, too, but it was mostly wrapped around his impressive musculature. Even with his more monstrous qualities, when fully visible under the LED star-lights he was fascinating-- almost beautiful.

“You’re hard to ignore, it’s true,” she teased him a little. His hand was back in his lap, but he canted his head again. His smile had fallen a little lopsided, almost like a smirk. 

**You could not disappear simply by holding still, either.** That was a strange way of putting it, she thought. He meant it as a compliment, but she was programmed to have a certain... presence. An aura, Lobo called it. Auras were not real things, not scientifically of course, so she had decided it meant that she habitually moved in a way that was confident, seemed certain even when she wasn’t. Biologically that made sense, as something that drew the attention of other humans.

“Thanks. I think.” A little flush did touch her cheeks, though. 

**What is your designation?**

“You mean my name? I’m Jupiter.” She stuck out her hand again, smiling. Now he was really smirking, bemused and yet pleased, and held out two fingers for her to shake. “Nice to meet you, SB-FU.”

**Nice to meet you as well, friend Jupiter.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope everyone is holding up well <3


	32. paramount

Inside a room, cramped and dark and full of screens lazily blinking static or dull black and white video that ran in from all over the base, Leia was fiddling with something at the motherboard.

“Come on, you piece of shit.” The flat tray in her hand was resistant to returning to its home inside the CPU, catching on the little release lock instead of pushing it back down like it was supposed to. 

Somewhere in the shadowed corners of her steel-gilded heart, the feeling that perhaps this was an omen of its own kind came to her. Perhaps, the voice of the Force mused, she was making a poor decision, trying to read this particular chip. She felt cold all of a sudden, and her fingers faltered on the tray. It clattered to the concrete floor, and the chip skidded a few inches away. 

But she was full of something she wasn’t used to-- something that burned like ice, and stung behind her eyes. Everything she’d been working towards, she told herself, depended on this project’s success. It filled her throat with bile, to remember that, but it couldn't be forgotten. Not after all these losses, sinkholes in the network opening up as Requisitions Specialists seemed to find their way into squalid single-units at the bottom of Corellia and Hosnian Prime and even Nar Shaddaa, places they had no business being. No product, not that she knew of anyway. Nothing to trail the First Order to the checkpoints. It had to be him, she thought. She had to find out if it was him.

Maybe this would not tell her, though. What then? What did she really mean to learn? 

Her hands, stiff with age, closed around the pieces. Replaced the chip inside the tray, rose on aching knees from her crouch to try again. The sound of defiance in that subterranean oubliette was the tiny mechanical noises as the tray slid in neatly, this time. 

The Force would let her suffer her own consequences, it seemed. The screen blared black, green text appeared. 

>//server/LAN/system/library/security/history/B5/file:93900xZ375.vid

>key:

>password accepted

>recording begins

>Inside the secret lab on B5, the lights are low. There are alcoves in the wall. Inside one of them, crowded by shadows, a girl is standing. Lobo is nearby, talking to her.

>How did your mission go? 

> _It went well. I’ve gotten into the CFO’s good graces, at least. I might get more information about the target that way._

>Did you see him this time?

> _No. Just the once in person, and the once in virtual. He’s a little… theatrical._

>Lobo chuckles. 

>He is, yeah. He kinda always was. How’d the systems hold up? You were gone till late.

> _They… have been a little tricky. But not like the first time. The reinforcements to my core helped, I think. I have to keep a careful eye on them, though. I agree a self-sustaining power source will increase my longevity between charges._

>I see.

>Lobo rubs his bearded chin thoughtfully. 

> _Father, if I can get into the good graces of other employees there, I should, right?_

>Hm? I don’t see why not, assuming they can get you closer to the target or help you find out how they keep spotting our checkpoints. Why do you ask?

> _Just… sometimes I seem to garner special attention._

>I built you to look like you belonged in a room full of people who all live above the 80th floor, despite your apparent lack of augmentations. I suppose it makes sense that you’d strike some people as unusual for that. 

> _I thought it might behoove me to exploit it. To see what I can learn, if anything._

>Well, dear, you know what I think. Use every tool you have available. Discard what doesn’t work, recycle what you can. You’ve learned a great deal. I know your weapons skills are constantly improving, and I assume you’re learning more about reading people?

> _Yes. It gets much easier the more I do it, but some people are more opaque than others. I do worry my instinctive responses may cloud my intuition, though._

>They might, but they won’t cloud your intelligence. You have to use those skills when intuition gets foggy.

> _It does that for everyone, right?_

>Oh yes, my dear. It’s very foggy much of the time for us all. I’m sorry I can’t refine the program more, but humans can’t seem to refine their own programs either. Did you learn more about the biotech stuff? Or was that a load of bantha shit?

> _They speak covertly about that topic even inside the tower. Which leads me to believe there’s some truth to the rumor._

>Lobo frowns, rubs his beard again.

>Find out.

> _Yes, sir._

>Oh, don’t call me sir, you know I hate that. 

> _I’m sorry, it’s just something I say a lot while I’m working._

>Of course, dear, don’t worry. Now, this is a critical project. Yes, please continue to learn whatever you can about the other issues, but progress has been slow on the primary objective. I want to impart to you as much as possible that you _have_ to find a way to see him more, to speak to him if you can. I know you’re learning to read opponents in combat, but really I think the best way to the target is to get inside his head. 

> _I understand. I mean, I don’t think he’s around the tower very often. He’s always in his mask. And he doesn’t speak much. Moreso around the girl, it seems like._

>The girl? Oh, yeah. Hm. 

> _I don’t know why he thinks she’s important, but that’s what I gathered from our VR run-in. I could speak to her. We could try to find him together._

>No. Your objective is too highly classified. I can’t risk her learning about this. 

> _But I know I would make better progress if I weren’t alone--_

>I said no. Unless I’m given a direct order from Leia that says otherwise, it’s better the others in the LAN don’t even know you exist. If you think you’ll run into them, wear your helmet.

> _I look like a human, don’t I? Why would they have any reason to question me, or know about my objective?_

>Plotting with Rey to get to the target might clue them in, among other possibilities. I don’t put my foot down often, you know that. This, I am putting my foot down about. Please don’t argue with me any more about it. 

> _I… alright. I won’t._

>There’s a good girl. Now, you need to steady yourself. Charge up, focus. Rewatch the logs or memory files if you have to. You’re not making headway as fast as you could be, and I know that’s partly because the target is unpredictable, but this is paramount. To everything. And I know you have the skills to do it if we just keep working. Do you understand?

> _Yes, father._

>What is your objective?

> _To kill Kylo Ren._

>Remember that, dear. And everything it means. 

> _I will._

>Goodnight. 

> _Goodnight._

>recording ends

The words struck her harder than she thought they would-- of course, she should have known it would hurt. Leia knew the purpose of this project, hell she’d been the one who agreed to start it. But she’d peeked behind the curtain anyway, and that was her own choice. Her guts churned, and she heard the little tray eject itself. Pulling the chip from it in shaking hands, she slammed the tray back where it belonged and held herself like the weight of the sun was on her back. Always she longed to weep, and yet no tears would come. 

“I’m sorry, Ben.”


	33. audio file - 4a9fs8r.mp4

>//server/LAN/system/library/audio/comm-net/35aby/4a9fs8r.mp3

>key:

>password accepted

>this is a non-native file. are you sure you want to proceed? 

>confirmed

>recording begins

> \--an you hear me? Spectre! Come in!

_ >Right here, Hot-Dameron! _

>I fuckin’ told you didn’t I? If we fried the terminal--

_ >Fuck you! You were fucking right, okay? _

>This ain’t about bein’ right, Voss, it’s about our network being totally compromised.

_ >Yeah? And? That’s why I clipped the backup generator, pretty sure your people lost everything at that checkpoint unless it was backed up but-- _

>What if they got in, though? We can’t have a fucking Req Specialist in, Voss. We need a tracker.

_ >Arrpee can track them. He asked what’s in it for him, though. _

>Of course he did. Tell him to name his price, I bet Leia will pay it. You both got out clean I assume?

_ >Yeah, we did. We’re on the Quicksilver now, heading towards-- _

>Don’t tell me where. Just stay away from our network for a while, and watch out in case one of those Req fuckers is tailing you.

_ >Fair enough. You got out too? _

>Barely. I’m still outside, trying to clear the building out ‘cuz I think they’re gonna circle back--

_ >Dameron! You’re still there? You fuckin’ chiphead, get the fuck out! I promise they’ll circle back and when they do you’re fucked! Arrpee, back me up!... Okay, nevermind. Maker you’re grouchy today. _

>Doesn’t matter, Spec, I gotta make sure this fuckin’ thing is unrecoverable. I dunno how they’re finding us but-- shit! Fuck!

_ >Poe what the fuck did I just hear? _

>Don’t-- shit!-- don’t worry about it! 

_ >Fuck you! I’m worried about it! I’m coming back, you need reinforcements-- _

>Stay the fuckin’ course, damn you!

_ >You’re always so glitched without me. Just like when we used to run parallel before you jetted off to become a fucking anarchist! Shut up, Arrpee! _

>I can’t have you gettin’ found out by these guys! Your uncle being over at FO these days, this is way worse than if he just found out you still run floaters--

_ >They won’t see me, I won’t let them. I’m coming back. _

>You’re so-- eat that, you fucker!-- so ridiculously stubborn-- shit!

_ >I’m calling your girlfriend! _

>What? No!

_ >Yes, she’s a good fucking shot, she’ll bring your boyfriend with her who’s also a good fucking shot, and I can hear that there’s too many of them so don’t you fucking die, Poe! _

>Fine, but tell her to bring the big guy too! She’ll-- ack!-- she’ll know who I mean!

_ >Sounds great!  _

>Fuck off, you corporate piece of shi-- ARGH!

_ >Poe? POE! PO-- _

>end recording

>save to ROM?

>file saved


	34. rare

The opulence of Supremacy Spire was mirrored in every city that rose above 50 levels. All the same severe and arrogant beauty, angles and organic forms in sharp juxtaposition. Things from the long past were tagged and stored behind transparisteel anywhere else; at the tops of scrapers they were lavishly strewn about as though their owners could afford to lose or break them-- because they could. 

In Jedha it was the plastic and metal that was out of place. The only dead place inside the bubble; but it wasn’t dead, of course. It was very much alive, just no longer with humanity. Not with the Jedi, or their worshippers. Just with dirt, and the hardiest plants tucked secretly into their alcoves. 

Once again, Kylo Ren was not in uniform. He was missing his jacket and had rolled up his black shirt sleeves, because the sun was hot. Standing with his back to the guests, he looked out over the roof below the one that First Order, LLC was currently occupying. It gnawed at him that Snoke let Hux arrange such a party, when this was his boss’ holy place, too. But of course, that was not all. He was irritated, his pride inflamed. She was late. So as the sun set, he had turned towards the ruins seeking clarity.

And, at that moment, he also saw the figure he’d been searching for all night leaning against the stones at the edge of the lower roof, also looking out over the city. 

He felt foolish, for a moment, that his heart jumped up into his throat. Always that strange shame crept behind his feelings for her. But he banished it; wasting not a second he turned towards the stair that connected the temple roof to its humbler offshoot, the home of the keepers that had once tended this place. When he came around the corner, he was under a little covered walkway that clung to the temple building on one side and opened up to the roof on the other. And out there she was, still leaning forward on the stones, gazing out as the rays of the fading sun struck their orange light across countless other buildings and temples. 

For a moment, he just stood there, watching her. The curve of her back was familiar, though not as wildly revealed in this garment; a golden sheath that left her legs and shoulders bare. He felt an inexplicable pang of anxiety. What if she didn’t want to keep seeing him? What if their brief, passionate moments had been a delusion, never again to be repeated? What if--

But she turned around at that moment, and her eyes found his immediately. Her head canted to the side a little, and she rose one quizzical brow above the nearly imperceptible smirk that appeared on her face. He had seen that face in his dreams-- not always good dreams, in fact never good dreams-- but seeing it in the flesh once more sent lightning through him. His return smirk was even less perceptible than hers, but he gave her a brow, too. 

She looked away from him even as she began to walk over. Kylo wondered if his elation was clear on his face, though he guessed not. She came right up to him, just under the lip of the shadowed walkway, grinning wryly. He returned it, said nothing.

“Hello,” she said finally. That gravelly voice soothed his ears against the errant noise of the partygoers above. 

“Hello.”

“I missed dinner again.” 

“I noticed.” 

“Did you?” There was such a gleam in her eye. 

“Well, yes. You’re easy to notice even when you’re gone.” Now she really gave him an eyebrow, but she didn’t hide her blush, either. 

“I do stand out, here. With these people.” She glanced away, and something fell in her face.

“Why’s that?” 

“Because I’m not like them.” She hardened just a little, glancing back at him.  _ Oh, her lack of augmentations. Of course.  _ But she didn’t seem envious of their sterile perfection, either.

“I’m sorry you don’t feel at home here,” he said gently. With that the edge was gone from her look, and she gazed up at him in a way that made him want to kiss her. Everything she did made him want that, though, so he didn’t. He was once again baffled and relieved by the lack of internal monologue around her. 

“I don’t feel at home anywhere, much, but maybe I just haven’t found the right place. Or the right people.” She turned away a little, glancing back over her shoulder and into the pink and orange glow that ever so slowly faded around them.

“Some people are rare.” He watched her face. “It can be difficult for precious things to be comfortable, when others don’t know what to do with them.” 

“And you?” She faced him again, sunset gathering in her hazel eyes. Even without the stream of secrets he could usually hear, her body language told him that she was surprised and flattered by his words. She stepped over in front of one of the stone pillars, a little closer to him, leaning back against it. “Why don’t you feel at home here?”

He was stunned by her question, and it took a moment for him to parse how to answer it. For a split second, his entire life sped through his mind. 

“I suppose I’ve never felt at home anywhere, either.” 

“So we’re both rare, huh?” A wry smile again, smaller this time. He leaned a little closer to her, pulled in by her gravity. Every subtle movement of her lips, every flick of her eyelashes wrapped him tighter and tighter around her finger. He knew it, and at that moment he didn’t care. 

“Incredibly.” His voice was a breath, a hope. But her eyes cut up and over to the stairwell he had just descended, and then he heard the footsteps-- and the voice.

“...hope you’re down here, because if you’ve run off I swear before the Maker Snoke will flay you...” Kylo was striding towards the corner of the building, glaring up the stone steps at Hux as he filed down them. 

“Do you want something?” His voice was all sharp edge, and he felt his anger bubbling up. 

“Ah! There you are. I was wondering--”

“What do you _ want? _ ” 

“The party’s winding down a bit early, so the guests can stargaze,” frowned Hux. “I wanted to be sure you were present in case of any security breaches, as we’ll be fully in the dark for some hours. After what happened last time, it seemed prudent.”

“You mean your sick little exhibit that ended up hemorrhaging blood and money, Armitage?” 

“I don’t fucking appreciate--”

“Go,” Kylo spat. “I’ll save your ass again, if I need to.” He glared at the redhead, who glared back. But in this sort of mood, Hux knew, there was no use arguing with the COO. So he turned around and stalked back up the stairs, grumbling. Kylo watched him until he was well out of earshot, then turned around. At first he thought the girl was gone-- but then he realized she had tucked herself up behind him, so much smaller than he that she’d managed to vanish for Hux’s entire intrusion. He chuckled, and she smiled. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t actually like talking to Hux. He’s a little  _ too _ attentive.” She rolled her eyes, and he ignored the possessive needle that pierced his heart. Someone who deserved her, maybe, but not Hux. He would want her for his trophy shelf, the same one he kept Kylo on. 

“Yes, he can be persistent,” he growled. “I hope he doesn’t bother you.”

“I can handle him.” Her eyes were sharp and lips smug; he believed she  _ could _ handle him. It spurred his attraction. “Where shall we go to watch the stars be still?”

“We can stay here. I’ll know if anyone is coming down.”

“Alright, but let me run up to the refresher first.”

“Don’t take too long, the sun’s already well below the horizon and it gets darker here than you’ve ever seen.” He grinned. She only threw that same  _ I can handle it _ look back at him. 

“I’ll be back. Don’t fret.” And she vanished around the corner, back up the stairs. He sighed once she was gone, every nerve in his body full of power-- and, ever alongside it, agony.

The night swallowed everything but the stars. Darkness that immense sometimes threatened to swallow him, show him all the things he pretended not to think of anymore. But the stars spun above, and he let himself drift with them for a moment.

He heard footsteps before he felt the gentle brush of another body beside him. She stumbled, and his hand shot out to steady her. 

“Easy there,” he murmured.

“Is that you?”

“It’s me.” He felt her lean a little into him until she was steady on both feet again, and felt her hands (they were so small, he thought) wrap around his forearm. “You made it.”

“I told you I would.” She was almost laughing. The sounds of the guests above talking and necking in the black faded into noise behind her voice.

“I believed you.” He reached out with his other arm, tugging the vague shape of her closer. But he did not grip her tightly, though he hated the idea of her slipping out of his arms like smoke again. “Have you ever seen so many stars?” 

“No,” she breathed, slowly letting him draw her in. He knew her face was turned upwards, but he stared down into the shadow as though by looking he could summon the vision of her. “It’s incredible.”

“How do you feel?” 

“I’ve never seen any holy place, not in the flesh. It feels... different.” 

“That’s because it is different.” Her body was against him now, and he could have folded her into him, she seemed so small. There was something about this moment of darkness that lacked urgency, every single touch amplified. “Thousands of years, the most powerful beings that ever lived considered this their home. Just as long, others with no power at all still worshipped here. All that prayer is in the bones of this city.”

“I wish I could’ve seen it while it was still alive.” He bent his head down over her.

“It lives, little one. Under the surface, where we can’t ruin it again.” Empire Corps was to blame for a great many ruined things. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I could show you.” Their faces were close; he felt her breath on his cheek.

“Alright.” He pressed her to him, and began to turn and walk them towards the other side of the roof. She stifled her laugh as she tried to walk, wrapping her arms around his waist. Before they arrived at the stair, though, he simply hoisted her up into his arms and carried her down. He knew this city like he knew his own heartbeat; the Force was in every stone. Her tiny hands came around his neck, fingers interlacing under his black hair. 

Next door to the grand temple, there was another temple. It was much smaller, and it was Kylo’s favorite place in the entire city. He crossed the dusty road and carried her over the threshold, into the sanctuary. In here it was truly black as pitch, but he knew every step through until they emerged into a little room.

The girl gasped as they entered, and this time he could see her face. The space was lit by hundreds of bioluminescent flowers that grew all over, their purple-black vines clinging to the walls and the ceiling. 

Gently, he lowered her to the ground. She slipped out of his hands, striding forward to get close to one of the blossoms that glowed pale, bruised the foliage around it with its soft light. 

“Oh, Maker.” Her sigh was a symphony to his ears. 

“There are dozens of places like this in Jedha,” he said. “Hidden from the rain that could kill them, learning to grow in the darkness.” 

“This is beautiful. My…” She stood upright, one hand over her heart.

“Are you alright?” He drew closer, suddenly worried. When she turned towards him, she seemed almost overwhelmed.

“It just feels like a weight.” Her hand moved over the fabric of her dress. “It… I’ve never felt that before. This place makes my heart feel strange.” 

He was nearly laughing, surprised and maybe a little delighted by her reaction. Part of him was beginning to wonder about this girl.

“Truly lovely things do that,” he cooed, smiling at her. It was one of the more artless smiles he could remember giving. Eyes heavy with whatever sensation had just struck, she stared up at him. 

“Do they?”

“Of course. Which is why this place is still holy. The wonder once felt here still lives.” He looked around the cluster of lights they were tangled in. “Such loveliness breeds heartache.”

“I see.” Her eyes followed his for a moment. “Thank you. For showing me this.” Now he looked back down at her. Her awe seemed real, not the voyeuristic fascination of everyone else he regularly interacted with. It left him somewhat in awe of  _ her, _ piled new questions on top of the dozens of others in his mind. Others he was still hesitant to ask.

“Thank you for wanting to see it.” 

A pause, fully pregnant, two pairs of starry eyes interlocked. The electricity was different, this time. It was soaked through with longing, at least for him, and swollen with the power of this place.

“You gave me something to miss, after all,” he said quietly. This seemed to surprise her, though she just smiled. 

“Why?” 

“I’ve never met someone like you.” In more ways than he could clearly articulate. “Why’d you miss me?” Something like a smirk came over his face, and she glanced away briefly. 

“You seem so familiar, yet I know tonight’s only the fourth time we’ve met.” 

“Two fully opposite reasons?”

“Yet they have the same effect.” Now she was smirking a little too, and it drew him to her like a moth to a flame. Hands slid up her arms, one rising all the way to her face to touch her cheek with its fingertips. 

“You’re a lovely thing, too.” He wanted to devour her.

“You say that like you know.” His thumb slid over her bottom lip; she let her mouth fall slack, and he felt the tiny hitch in her breath. 

“Let me find out.” His murmur lingered by her ear, his body full of fire.

Wordlessly, she drew his other hand towards her chest. There was a zipper in the front of her sheath dress. It revealed her slowly, opening in a deep V before he pulled the straps off and let it slide down her body into a heap around her ankles. 

There wasn’t a single visible augmentation on her; he wondered if she had any at all. It seemed impossible that she didn’t. Yet there was this beautiful, unaltered body before him, caught in the glow of sacred flowers.

“I’m sorry,” he said, breathless as her fingers took to the buttons on his shirt. “I was wrong. You aren’t just lovely, you’re perfect.” Her hands were on his chest, his skin growing gooseflesh at her touch. 

“That’s a strong word,” she breathed against his mouth. “But I want to say it about you, too.”

“Say what you like.” He gripped her waist, pushed their bodies into each other. She trembled, full of that strange thing she was talking about, and he pushed her up against the stone wall, nestled her in light. “I’ve wanted you so badly from the moment I saw you.” 

“Then take me.” 

In the temple he was commanded, and so worshipfully he obeyed. 


	35. transcript - log 38.24

>//server/LAN/system/library/target/kylo/data/history/file:oVLA03xABY.vid

>recorded [date redacted], 38.24 Luke Skywalker

>transcribed by  Ph|2/\k+a|_

>buffering…

>key:

>password accepted

>notes: I asked Luke to grant us his knowledge of what makes Kylo tick. This is essential to your work. Luke has maybe seen him actually tick more than anybody else, now that I think about it.

>transcription begins

>I don’t mean to make you feel bad, Taran, but this makes me uncomfortable. I might have to stop myself, and whatever you get, that’s whatcha got. 

>he pauses

>Thanks for understanding. Okay, so, you need to get into Kylo’s head? First thing’s first, I don’t really know Kylo Ren. I know Ben Solo. I can’t account for how things might’ve changed. Just a disclaimer. But Ben needed to believe in something that was always there, always present for him. I guess everything in his life felt inconsistent.

>he sighs

>That thing became the Force, obviously. He always thought a lot about how to use it, or new ways to use it, I guess. He could sense other people’s thoughts-- I could before, I still can sometimes, but only if I listen real hard. Ben could hear them basically all the time. There was a time when that was driving him crazy, like around ten or eleven years old, so I taught him how to push the thoughts away. I have a feeling that’s the one thing about being a psion he probably still hates, even though it does give him a kinda control, or an illusion of control.

>he pauses

>Ben also liked nature. He didn’t see a lot of it, but hell, he even loved deserts. Just fuckin’ sand everywhere, but it made him happier than Corellia or Hosnian Prime ever did. If he saw green, he’d make a beeline for it every time. 

>he chuckles

>The things that made him angry, though, those things all had to do with denial of his… not desires, necessarily. He wasn’t a brat. If he got upset because he was denied something, it was something that meant a whole lot to him. Something that felt important, something that felt, I dunno, natural maybe. Compelling. Denying those things made him feel small, and that always set him off. He’d get sad at first, then he’d get angry. Sometimes skipped straight to angry, more and more of that as he got older.

>he rubs the back of his head

>You can kinda understand why, of course.

>he sighs

>he looks to the side

>In a fight? I dunno, I really don’t. I don’t wanna know. I’m never gonna fight Kylo Ren, Taran. Maybe I should, but I don’t care. I can’t harm that boy any more than I already have. 

>he looks down

>he looks back up

>I assume he’d be ruthless, maybe he’d get so mad he’d lose focus. Or maybe his anger would help him focus. Either could be possible with Ben. Back when we sparred, as long as he felt like he had the upper hand, he was steady. But as soon as he felt truly threatened, he would panic. Which meant reckless use of the Force. That could be different, now, though. Sometimes he was really funny if you surprised him, like if the surprise was big enough he’d just go all droid-eyed. That freeze is so rare, though. I couldn’t tell you what would cause it, these days. That’s… that’s probably when he’d be most vulnerable, though. 

>he pauses

>he looks down

>he looks to the side

>he looks down

>Okay, yeah. I’m done. 

>transcription ends


	36. buried

Hux knew that Ren had been in and out of the executive suites at the top of Supremacy Spire many times more than he had, and the rumors of his CEO’s condition were rampant even inside the company itself. None of them embellished upon by Kylo, of course, who wielded his own rather sinister presence so often and yet whispered in and out of those chambers like a shadow, tight-lipped.

When he was summoned there, Hux never quite knew if it was for good or ill, unless it directly followed such an auspicious occasion as the time he let the Slymicon escape from the summer gala after gutting half a dozen guests. How he had kept his position after that, he still wasn’t sure. But today there was no precedent, and that was almost worse, shooting him through with the cellular tension of not-knowing.

He entered the foyer and removed his shoes. Ever fastidious, he set them in perfect alignment about half a meter from the door to the left. After a long moment, to remind the visitor whose time they were on, the door slid open. 

The living suite was dark, almost dejected. Not unkempt, but under-used with a gossamer blanket of dust. Hux raised a brow, looking through a hallway towards the only light source. 

“Come closer, lad.” The voice was strained, but it seemed louder than it could’ve possibly been. With careful steps the redhead entered the lit hall, and found his way to the master bedroom. 

In the center of the room upon the rather dramatically large bed was Snoke, wreathed in darkness except for the faint light of the refresher which fell on one side of his face. He was upright in the bed, facing the door with a very old-fashioned IV tube in his wrist. The air was astringent with the chemicals of sickness. 

“Sir,” Hux said, nodding his head. “How are you?”

“Well enough. I have good news for you. I believe it is time to begin pre-production on our latest cash crop.” He smiled only a little, and his cheeks were so sunken he looked like a death’s head. 

“That is good news, sir.” 

“I want you and your department to begin combing over the investors. Find support for this project. By whatever means necessary.”

“Yes, sir.” He waited for Snoke to speak again, but the barely-lit figure of the man sagged frail back against the bedframe. He waved a hand, dismissing his employee. So Hux turned to go, making towards the open door with his mind already full of tasks.

“Oh, and Hux.” The call was not a question, it was a command. The redhead froze, and turned back to his boss. 

“Sir?”

“Keep an eye on Ren, will you? He’s been working extra hard lately. Wouldn’t want him to get burnt out.” One lingering look from a sharp, yellowed eye. Hux did his best not to fume-- why the fuck should  _ he _ look out for Ren? The COO had been much worse than childish lately, he’d been cruel and distracted. Even the emotionally bereft sex they’d been having had all but vanished in the wake of whatever the hell had happened at the spring gala. His jaw tightened, but he bit his tongue. Snoke was never speaking plainly, after all. Surely there was something buried in his words, some secret he would have to notice at the right moment. 

“Sir.” It was acknowledgement, quick and accompanied by a nod before he turned and left the stench of cancer behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of a short one but i'm trying not to waste words with a cast this big o_o feel free to let me know how you feel about the OCs, there are a lot of them that are all inspired by some friends of mine and i love them a lot. some even have little side short stories now.
> 
> hope everyone is keeping well!


	37. trust me

The X-wing rumbled gently up towards the spires of stones that marked the base, the blue velvet cloak of night wrapped around everything save where the lights on the ship’s nose shone yellow. As the engine turned off, the lights went with it; all was silence and darkness. 

For a moment inside the cockpit with the hatch up, Jupiter just sat there with her head sagging back against the headrest, eyes seeking even a fraction of the number of stars she knew existed in the fathomless sky above Jakku. Only a dozen or so winked back at her, sleepy signals behind the smog of a dying world. Her hand was on her chest against her heart; in it she clutched a rumple of golden cloth. 

She heard her visitor coming. 

**Friend Jupiter. From where are you returning?**

“You know I can’t tell you that.” Heavy eyes slid over to the impossibly tall figure of SB-FU, who was loitering at the half-open blast door inside its orange pillar of stone. “What are you doing out here?”

**It is night, and I am restless.**

“I know that feeling.” Slowly, as though lead had settled in her limbs, she hauled herself out of the cockpit and down onto the sand.

**I know that you do. More often than myself. Are you well tonight?**

“I’m… something,” she sighed, looking up at his empty face above the lips that had begun more and more to express as much as they could without other features to help. “I’ve had a strange night. I think I might be full of _feelings._ ” The way his mouth cracked into the corner of a grin made her feel distinctly that sense of camaraderie she often only felt with SB.

 **Now that is curious. What are they like? Perhaps I have had them before.**

“You’ve never mentioned this, if you have, which means you’ve been holding out on me.” She mirrored his playful expression. “It doesn’t feel like anything we’ve talked about.”

 **Then what?** He canted his head. 

“I dunno.” Her eyes wandered for an instant into the stars she could no longer see, into another pair of eyes she could no longer meet. “I think it might be called wonder. I feel so small, but so full.”

 **Perhaps you feel small because you** **_are_ ** **small.** She reached out to bat at his hand, giggling as she scolded him. 

“You hush! To you, everyone is small!” She felt something like the rumble of laughter in her head, the low echo of the strange means by which he spoke. “It’s not like that. It’s like, I know how large the world-- the _universe--_ really is. How close to nothing I am compared to it.”

 **This sounds like it might be frightening, friend Jupiter.** She could see his concern in the way he leaned over her a little, protective. But all she could do was smile.

“It should be, but it isn’t. The fullness-- I feel like every mote of dust is a whole world. But it’s heavy, it slows me down to think about it. Have you ever felt that?”

 **Like a weight here?** His big hand traveled up to his even bigger chest, pressed right at the center of it. Now she eyed him thoughtfully.

“Yeah. Exactly.” 

**I have felt this before. But, it was more like sadness. What you describe is not very much like sadness, I do not think. Perhaps sadness lives within it, but much else is there.**

She chewed her lip, thinking of everything and nothing. Trying to feel her body the way she could hours before, but distance had returned to her. Everything was in storage, everything her systems would need to remember. Then hazel eyes wandered back up to her much taller companion. 

“Does it fade?”

 **Yes. All feelings do, and then they return again.** He canted his head. **Is your feeling fading now?**

“Yeah. It’s gone, except I can almost remember it.” 

**Would you like to feel something else, then?** She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Like what?”

 **Anything, really. I could carry you up to the perch on top of this rock. The moon is rising.** He pointed behind her, and sure enough Jupiter turned to see the full yellow moon peeking over the horizon, behind the low shelves of Jakku’s township. She spun back around, cast her eyes up to the top of the pillar. 

“You can get up there?” 

**Do you doubt me?** He was grinning again.

“No. I don’t.” She grinned back. He took a knee, as he always did, and she climbed up his leg to wrap arms around his neck. Suddenly, they vaulted forward and up, onto a nearby stone that rose nearly to the same height as the one the base entrance was tucked into. Claws came out of his fingers, and his foot sank its claws into the surface of stone while the cybernetic leg’s dual-peg wedged itself against a crack. 

**Hold tightly to me, alright?**

“Okay!” She was giggling-- she could never help it, catapulting through the air on SB’s back. Even with his massive size and strength, he moved in a way that seemed to defy physics. It was exhilarating.

They scaled the rock with relative ease, reached its zenith facing the other pillar. Without any warning at all, the Slymi ran the several steps he could over the top-- and with one powerful leap, landed on his feet atop the other spire. Jupiter heard herself cry out, her circuits jittering. He dropped to a crouch with the weight of his landing, and she could feel his body puffing up and collapsing with massive breaths. His laugh rang again in her ears. 

**Surely you feel something now!**

“Yeah, something!” She didn’t want to turn loose of his neck just yet, but she did anyway. Being this high up over the empty desert, a meager little town several kilometers away, was disorienting. “It’s not like being in a scraper. It’s… terrifying, but…” She turned to the moon, just clear of the horizon at this level. 

**Joyful?** He’d taken a seat, propped up on one hand with his elbow resting on a knee and the other leg splayed out lazily.

“Yeah.” 

**Friend Rey called it that. I believe she is right.**

“I think so too.” A pang of something less joyful at the mention of Rey, or anyone else on the base, but she never told SB about those. Why shouldn’t he talk about his friends? Just because she wasn’t able to have any, and her ongoing conversations with the Slymicon were a bit of a secret? But the moon was bright, and the rocks all around cast strange shadows until they faded into distant dunes. She looked back at her companion; he was clearly regarding her, curious as to her response. “This is a lovely perch. But how do you get down?”

 **Trust me.**

“I do.” That was a strange thing to recognize, of a sudden. But it was true.

 **Sit, friend Jupiter.** Walking towards him, she sank to the rock between the splay of his legs, leaned her back against his bent calf and sighed. 

“I’m glad you were awake, SB. I’m not sure how I would’ve handled the activation I was feeling before. It wasn’t bad, but it was… nearly overwhelming. I’m not sure I could be still, after that. Your company’s much nicer.” She threw him a smile, soft and easy in his gentle, protective presence. “I’m sorry, I totally forgot to ask you how your day went!” 

**It is quite alright. My day was uneventful. The loss of the checkpoints this week has taken a toll on the others. I believe they intend to keep a low profile for a while.**

“I heard about that,” she said, frowning. “That’s something I’ve been trying to figure out, too. How they know where the checkpoints are, why they’re attacking them.”

 **It is my fear that First Order may have obtained access to the LAN.**

“You think?” That was not heartening at all.

**Yes. It seems to the only explanation. There has been some talk of switching encryptions, in fact it may already have begun.**

“Nothing’s truly secure unless it’s quantum,” she murmured almost to herself. “They’re playing cat-and-mouse, and we’re always the mouse. How do we know there’s not a trojan here? Or that Ren doesn’t have someone and he’s taking information from their mind?” 

**I hope there is not a trojan.** Now his face was bent into a frown too, a real one. **If someone were to bring harm here…**

“Yeah. Me too.” Sometimes, she knew she was meeting his eyes even though he didn’t have any. At that moment, she knew it. Neither quite human, both much stronger and more difficult to kill; they would break scrapers to protect this place, these people. “Do you think they know about you yet? First Order, I mean?”

 **I have endeavored not to leave their agents living enough to tell of me.** He snarled just a little, showed one massive canine and let a low growl rumble in this throat. 

“Good. If they send many Slymis at once to fight with you, that will make everything a lot harder."

 **You say this very assuredly, friend Jupiter.** She cast a slightly uneasy glance at him.

“I’ve killed Slymicons before, SB. More than one. It’s not easy.” Now, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling in the silence that hung thick for a moment. 

**You are very powerful, so I do not doubt you. But not all of us are as difficult to kill as me.** The corner of his mouth curled up, and she felt her tension at admitting such a thing fall away.

“Still, if something happened to you...” To her shock, tears were suddenly lurking behind her eyes. This was a bio-simulative function she’d never experienced. Blinking rapidly, she endeavored to hold them back. “You’re my only friend.” 

Why it should’ve seemed strange, she wasn’t sure. But when his hand stroked her cheek softly with one giant thumb, she was surprised. And profoundly soothed.

**I will survive. If only to protect my friends, which includes you. Please do not fear for me.**

“I think I fear for everyone, all of a sudden.” She tried to laugh feebly. Everything that was an emotion before today was now refracted, enlarged, massive. His hand cupped her cheek-- well, really the entire side of her head almost-- and she put her hands on top of it, pressed their two silica skins together. “This must be why humans long for touch so much. It does help.” 

**Have you ever had a hug?** The smile on his plush lips was sweet. He held his other hand out, and the knee she’d been propped against slid itself flat to the rock. 

_Had_ she ever had a hug?

It was truly instinctive, to clamber over to the massive chest of SB-FU and wrap her arms over his shoulders in that moment. In turn, his arms came around her with careful pressure that seemed to knock the tension out of her. She let out a long breath, sagging against him. The tears came up again of their own accord, as though the release spurred them forward instead of back. 

“Sorry,” she sniffled against his chest. “I’ve n-never cried before.”

**It is not quite sadness, is it?**

“N-no. It’s something else. I don’t want to lose Lobo… or l-lose you.” She was stunned in the wake of it, whatever the feeling was. 

**I feel this too, friend Jupiter. For all those who I would fight to protect.** She felt him rest his cheek against the top of her head, felt his fingers pet her hair softly. Her simulated breath rattled in her chest, but everything he did made her feel much less overwhelmed. 

“Anybody tell you what it’s called?” she laughed weakly, feeling her tears between her cheek and his shoulder.

 **There are many kinds of it. It is called** **_love,_ ** **I think.**

“Oh, is that all?” His rumbly laugh came in tandem with hers this time.

**It is the most frightening emotion, is it not?**

“Absolutely the worst.” But her sighs under his arms let the terror out one gentle movement at a time. “Thank you, SB. I feel better.”

 **You are most welcome.**

For a while, she let him cradle her in his massive arms, listened to the gentle throb of his heart and felt the rise and fall of his chest. The world felt much, much bigger, and now she was so small under the weight of _love._ So many kinds of it had happened that day, and it felt ponderous in her plastic flesh.

 **You may need to return to your resting place soon.** His voice felt gentle between her ears. She realized she didn’t want to go back to the cold little alcove, not at all. 

“I suppose.” 

**Do not suffer ill consequences for the sake of my company, friend Jupiter. I would not bring harm to you inadvertently, either.**

“If I get in trouble, it’s my own fault. Not yours,” she chided him softly. “But, tragically, you have a point. Though, there’s no fuckin’ protocol for my missions.”

**No?**

“Nope. I’m meant to move at my own discretion, but I’ve always kept my time less than a 24-hour cycle. So I can recharge properly.” 

**Do you not require recharging now?** She blinked for a moment. 

“No,” she murmured. “I… still don’t.”

**Still?**

“I didn’t when I got here, and despite all the feelings I just had, I don’t need to now, either.” She pulled her face away from his body finally, baffled. “What do you think that means?”

**For someone such as yourself, I do not know. But I would consider it a boon, if losing power has been problematic before.**

“It really has.” Her mind buzzed, then she looked up at SB’s face. “Do you sleep?”

**Yes, though not for very long. About two hours in a 24-hour cycle.**

“Huh. Do you need to sleep now?”

 **Not at the moment, but soon.** He smiled again. **Why do you ask?**

“I’m just... trying to be courteous.” She was blushing-- she’d been thinking about staying curled up with the massive Slymi, relishing in the relief of his contact, maybe letting her systems rest while they coded away her experiences. But she wasn’t sure it was appropriate.

 **Would you like to retire to my loft? There at least if I do fall asleep, you would not be trapped on top of this rock.** A grin, and she almost laughed. 

“I wondered, but I thought it might be rude to ask. Like I’ve drained all your mystical powers of touch to regulate my systems,” she confessed. 

**My body requires touch to regulate optimally as well. It does not drain me. I believe humans call it… Hm. Friend Poe called it** **_snuggling,_ ** **once.**

“That sounds about right.” She beamed at him. “Yeah. Can we do that?” 

**Of course. You must hold onto me.**

“Wait, wh--” 

But he was up, one arm wrapped around her while the other sank claws into rock and he swung over the edge of the tower of stone. She squeaked in surprise, hands clasping tight around his neck. They dropped and scraped their way down to the sand, and once again she was laughing. 

**Forgive me. I enjoy surprising you.** His playful grin was not particularly regretful. 

“I noticed that.” But she grinned back. SB simply chuckled, and walked into the hangar bay to shut the blast door and climb back to his star-lit loft with Jupiter content in his embrace.


	38. first confluence pt.1

Rey had been in Luke’s lab, carefully soldering a new circuit into the face of a chip-board. It was for the innards of a computer that Luke was convinced might be the key to psionic influence on technology. He called it a  _ quantum _ computer, and she didn’t really know what that meant but a few of the parts had simple enough schematics she’d happily taken on the task while he was out picking up more components. 

Calm, focused, in the middle of her work, she felt it. The hairs on her neck and arms stood up, and she froze. What was--

The door slammed open, and she ducked just barely in time to avoid a blaster shot that was aimed directly for her head. In one fluid movement, she drew her own weapon, spun, and fired. The masked intruder howled, crumpled to the floor. 

_ “T7, you fucking moron!”  _ By the time the garbled voice of the second Req officer came through the doorway, the desert girl had pressed herself against the wall by the door. Her heart was racing, but her senses were all wide open. There were only five of them outside, but more were coming. She got the second one in the side when he entered, and he fell on top of his comrade, who was still alive and struggling towards her. She took aim for the officer’s head and heard the awful sizzle of his flesh when the shot struck him, then scampered over the bodies and out the door into Luke’s cramped living space. The front door was wide open. 

She made a beeline for it, thinking to try to keep them out of the lab at all costs. How did they find out? This wasn’t even a checkpoint--

Four dark figures converged, their bodies silhouetted against the sallow yellow light outside. 

“Shit!” she yelped, firing without thinking. The blasts seem to push the officers back a few steps but fizzled out against their armor. Two of their blasts made their way inside, and she dodged them just barely. The air around her felt heavy, condensing in her shaking hands, and she pushed it with all her might out the door.

She heard the clang of boots on the metal guard rail, and the disappearing scream of one officer as he hurtled off the walkway towards the street several stories below. But a blast grazed her shoulder like a furious brand; another missed her guts only because she twisted out of the way. The noises were overwhelming, the sparks catching her eyes. Her aim was poor, loose, desperate as she fired again, dodged, scuttled towards the sides of the room and out of range. But it wasn’t a large apartment, and she knew as soon as they came through the door she was fried. Not like this, she thought. There wasn’t even a Specialist there, for fuck’s sake--

Another body took half a step inside the doorway before a ferocious buzzing sound and a sharp green light pierced his torso, a needle of plasma driving him forward. Her eyes flew wide open as the blade vanished and the body keeled to the floor.

“Rey!” called a familiar voice. When Luke stepped inside fully, he turned and saw her blaster aimed right for him. “Shit, kid, it’s just me.” 

Lowering her weapon, breath tore into her lungs and desperately pushed oxygen through her terrified body. 

“We have to go.” Her hand strayed to her belt; there was her own saber, which she hadn’t even thought of using. “There are more-- we need to send a signal--”

“I’ve already sent it.” But instead of turning out of the building, he was making for the lab. “Did they--”

“Luke! We have to  _ go! _ ” Her eyes darted back and forth between the lab doorway and the open exit, the endless street noise and air traffic of Nar Shaddaa. Her speeder was upstairs five levels and ten blocks east on a rooftop parking deck; if they hurried they might make it before they were overwhelmed. 

“I need these parts!” His shout was blunted by the wall between them, and she heard him shoveling metal and Maker knew what else into something. “I can’t leave them here to be found!” She caught an acrid smell-- he was dousing his working CPU with whatever that horrific chemical that melted copper and steel was. Against every sensation of self-preservation in her body, she dashed back into the lab. Sure enough, Luke was loading up a satchel with all kinds of things. The hunk of metal on his worktable was melting, its stench clogging the air.

“What can I do?” 

“Grab that shit you were working on, I don’t care if it’s half done, then we can go.” She obeyed, running over to scoop the pre-quantum parts into her saddle pouch. Just as she was turning to reinforce the imminent need to depart, she felt it again. Not the same twinge as before, but a familiar one nonetheless.

“Shit.”

\-----

Finn was almost sprinting along the walkway, dodging between laypeople who shouted and swore at him. His blood felt like the cold sting of terror.

“Rey!” He stopped, saw the open door whose frame was scuffed with blast-marks. “REY!” He bounded in, heart racing. 

“Finn!” A familiar high voice called, and her body appeared in a second doorway inside. “Finn, go! Leave! He’s coming!” 

“Who?” But she was almost shoving him back towards the door.

“Go, go  _ now! _ ”

Just as the ex-corporate turned towards the exit, the yellow light disappeared behind a tall, dark silhouette. 

**I’ve found you, little mouse.**

Rey’s fingers dug into Finn’s flesh, gripping him as though she could protect him by doing so. Kylo Ren was standing just outside the door on the walkway, his weapon not yet drawn. Now the desert girl dashed in front of her lover, spreading out her arms like her small frame was armor of its own.

“Don’t you  _ touch _ them!” Her voice caught on her fear.

**I’m here for you.**

“I don’t know how many times I have to say no to you--”

**Oh, I know what choice you’ve made, little mouse.**

Her heart clogged her throat. He would kill her if she wouldn’t go with him, she was sure of it.

“You leave her alone!” Finn shouted. Almost as soon as he did, she felt the room around them get stiff, and turned her head to see him hanging from the air. He was clutching his throat, unable to breathe, strangled sounds sticking to the roof of his mouth. Utterly horrified for a moment, she found herself gripped with sudden fury.

**FN-2187, the penalty for voiding your contract is death. I would’ve read the fine print, if I were you.**

At that moment, the sound of a blaster rifle rang from somewhere distant. Almost simultaneously Ren’s hand shot out to the side, and through the dingy scrap of window Rey saw a rocket of brilliant orange light, suspended as if halted in its flight but still spinning, pushing, trying to move forward. He’d stopped a blast in mid-air. 

Finn was still choking, but Rey was clawing at the incorporeal hand of the Force while she stared her enemy down.

“Hey asshole!” came another shout, and a volley of blaster shots suddenly ricocheted off Kylo’s armor. The streak of orange energy careened off into traffic, and a familiar beaten-up Y-wing flew by beyond the railing. 

“Poe!” The desert girl’s heart sailed, and she turned to see Finn back on his feet and gasping. Then, she heard the unmistakable howl of a plasma weapon, and turned pale as Ren bellowed furiously and leapt away from the doorway in pursuit of their helpers. Finally Luke emerged from the lab. 

“Let’s go,” he growled, striding past them. 

“Oh so  _ now _ you’re with the program!” She scuttled after him, and Finn after her. 

\-----

From where he was, he’d lined up a perfect shot on the COO of First Order, LLC. What a helluva story this would be for the rest of the company. Beneath his helmet, Anarawd gave half a smirk and pulled the trigger on his Amban rifle. 

The smirk fell when his shot paused for no reason, spitting its energy into the air fruitlessly some three yards before it reached its target. 

“Shit.” 

“This might be why I heard you have to get inside his head, first,” came a voice behind him. Jupiter was crouched, but looking over the package deposit box they’d ducked behind for cover. She was wearing a helmet as well, hers more like a speeder helmet that shone silver even where her sight window should have been. It was difficult to tell, without her expression, if she was being dry or not. 

“Ya think?” The Mandalorian decided she was, his chest thumping as he watched the shot just dangle there against any and all possibility. When the Y-wing did a drive-by, though, his eyebrows shot up. “Looks like reinforcements are here.”

“Not just ours.” She moved down and around him, leaning over the edge of the walkway grate with her blaster in-hand. Before he could figure out what in hell she was doing, she fired two shots. Like flies, two Req officers on the walkway a floor down dropped dead. 

“Maker, you’re as scary as Ren sometimes,” he murmured. But then he looked up, and saw a massive black figure headed right for them with a screaming red blade in hand. “Just kidding, he’s worse!” Almost as a unit, the two of them leapt up and darted away around the corner of the building, then bounded up a fire escape stair in three jumps on grav-boots. 

“You guys know where there’s half-decent parking ‘round here?” came a shout over the sputter of an engine, and the Y-wing was flying up beside the walkway keeping pace as they ran. A scruffy, dark-haired smirk of a man was calling out to them, his orange and white droid beeping dramatically behind him.

“Stay in the air, flyboy, we might need you there!” Anarawd advised before he and Jupiter took another bounce up one more flight, hearing Kylo’s rage behind them.

“Fair enough!” The Y-wing jetted off unceremoniously.

“We’re leading Ren, so let’s lead him someplace we can corner him,” his companion said from under her helmet. 

“Agreed.” 

But up ahead, there were more figures clad in black. Jupiter was already taking aim.

\-----

Rounding a corner of the next building over, in the opposite direction of the furious red lightsaber, Rey almost shot a head of wild pink hair. 

“Hey! Cut it out, little mouse!” shouted the Spectre, who had been coming the opposite direction. “I’m here to help!”

“Arguably,” added a tinny voice as RP-M3 appeared behind her, “seeing as surprising humans is rarely helpful.”

“Did you guys come with Poe?” the desert girl panted.

“He buzzed us, yeah. Heard it might get ugly.”

“You got a way outta here?” Finn asked.

“Sure as hell do, but--”

The sound of a blaster from above and around the corner cut her off, and Rey realized her own blue blade was in her hand and sending the blast the opposite direction a second after it happened. She was starting to surprise even herself.

“Maker! Let’s turbo!” Spectre was already turning on her heels, RP-M3 rotating to go with her. The three Resistance members hurried behind, Luke turning back once to block another incoming shot. “It’s about fifteen blocks southeast to my ship,” their pink-haired guide added. 

“Fifteen? Are you shitting me?” Finn was not pleased.

“Presumably you do not wish to be followed out of the city by Requisitions Officers?” RP asked, flat voice still dripping with his usual brand of droidly condescension. 

“Fair enough,” muttered the ex-corporate. Just then, two more officers bounded down a nearby fire escape stair and volleyed shots at them. As they scattered, Rey turned to see another two coming from behind around the corner. She also saw Luke’s green blade, its powerful hum moving straight for them. 

“Luke!” But he’d sent their own shots right back at them, denting armor. Bounding down beside him, she drew her own weapon. Her last leap took her far, her body tumbling through the taut strings of the Force that flowed in around her from the molecules of breath and cloud. Landing behind one officer, she plunged her blade through his heart, leaving a hole that smoked and reeked of burnt flesh. 

The old Jedi had cut the other down, and was already turning back towards their companions who had retired one officer and were now dogging the other. But the side of his eye caught the scavenger, sweaty and pulsing with adrenaline and cortisol, before he strode back up the walkway. 

“Hey!” shouted a distant voice, and Rey looked above through layers of grates to see a helmeted head peeking over the roof at them. It was a familiar helmet, at least; the Mandalorian from Maz’s place. “Up here! You got a Y-wing escort coming!” His hand reached out, a blaster in it-- and shot yet another Req officer that was coming around a nearby corner. “Fuckin’ hurry!” For all the world, she felt like a rat in a maze. A maze you could easily fall off of. And now, of course, she felt a cold drop on her head. The brownish-gray clouds above hung ominous as they poised to block the sun. 

“To the roof! Poe’s got us!” she shouted to her companions, sprinting for the nearby stairs. 


	39. first confluence pt. 2

Kylo Ren was almost impossible to corner without also cornering yourself, Jupiter decided. So she’d managed to run him around in circles inside the parking levels, the top three of the building, and then vanished. She could hear his vocoder-scrambled roar of frustration from the walkway where she slipped out and immediately made her way back down to the floor where Luke’s apartment was. 

She knew what a lie was. She had never yet told one, not a real one. Strategic omission, sure. Colorful embellishment on the truth, when she was undercover inside the snare of Supremacy Spire chatting up Hux or letting Voss brag about his latest stock market success. Pruning information where she could. The CFO was more careful than the others, more subtle and cunning. But he’d let one thing slip. 

That thing drew her back down to the apartment, where she casually swiped a piece of plastic covered in metal circuits over the lock. It let her in obligingly, and she made her way to the lab door to do the same. Inside were two bodies, Req officers already beginning to reek, and the faint traces of a chemical reaction she knew. On the table were the crumbling, slightly smoking remains of a computer terminal and CPU.

He’d covered his tracks well. Of course he had, she thought. He had hackerjacked Empire Corps, it made sense he’d learned a thing or two. But to something like her, made of nanocircuits and silicone and electricity, this wasn’t always a deterrent. She knew the secrets, the ghost in the machine, and she could coax it out. Even make it speak. 

She wedged a stray hunk of metal into the split where the corrosive had begun to melt the housing shell away from the inner insulation layer of the CPU. Peeling it back, revealing the latches. The metal clanged to the floor as she discarded it, then pulled the next cover off being sure not to touch the parts that were still melting. 

The main motherboard was toast, obviously. All its ROM packets were fried, ashen impression of their dying sparks on their dull white faces. Glancing around, she found a stray pair of needle-nose pliers and began to pull the ROM packets out one at a time. They sprang away from their soldered grooves with ease, but the steel board they were attached to was between them and what she was looking for. He was smart, after all. So she yanked that off, too, and tiny screws flew all over the lab as she did. Strength was hidden in her slight frame, where only she could reveal it. 

The sensation that she wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to be doing this, struck her as soon as she saw the metallic gold plating on the sleeper drives. Maybe this would one day be something she’d have to lie about. Luke had known the risk, had hidden them from the casual viewer beneath the ROM. But he’d been in a hurry, and so they were still intact if difficult to get to. For a human, at least. 

Then again, this was not expressly against her objective at all. It was simply… well, rude. To steal someone else’s stuff. But she took them out, pushed them into the bottom of the satchel strapped to her thigh. She turned around to exit when her eye caught an unobtrusive staff leaning against the corner near the doorway. It was an electrostaff, she recognized, and it had been tinkered with. Customized. Curious, she picked it up. It was light, but balanced. When she touched the ignition button, the blades sang out of either end vivid white-- a plasma generator. The old Jedi had made a plasma staff. In the wake of her other foray into burglary, she took it.

Upon rounding the corner of the entrance to the apartment to ascend to the roof again, Jupiter met with an enormous figure so suddenly she almost walked into it. It was a Slymi in a jumpsuit, the weird visor on its face glinting in the rain that had begun to fall. A guttural growl clawed into her ears, and she struck out almost instinctively with the staff. 

She leapt back and away, hearing the gurgling howl of the thing before missing a swipe of its claws by less than a hair’s breadth. Tumbling, she pushed herself back up to her feet easily, spinning around and pulling out her blaster to take aim--

A deafening crash, and suddenly nine feet of flesh landed between her and the hunter. This one, she knew very well.

SB-FU’s cybernetic foot had been outfitted with claws just for this sort of occasion, and he lashed out and cut his surprised brethren across the chest without wasting a moment. She could hear the fleshy crunch of steel on blue muscle and white rib-bone, and the other Slymi staggered backwards. 

“SB! Duck!” she shouted, and he turned to smile back at her before doing just as he was told. Several shots from her weapon sparked against her enemy’s visor, struck its skull, and it howled. 

**Friend Jupiter. There are more below, the others have moved blocks ahead to another roof. You must hurry that way.** Even as his voice flowed through her mind, he spun and kicked the other Slymi once again. It managed to claw out, scratch SB across the arm. He bared his teeth and snarled, a fierce and exhilarating sound, and struck at it with his powerful arms. Claws caught its chest and shoved him backwards. 

With a yelp, the thing stumbled over the guard rail, flying through the air between cars and speeders towards the distant ground.

“Can you take me to them?” Jupiter asked, running up to SB’s massive form which always radiated protection to her-- a feeling she got nowhere else, which at that particular moment relieved her more than she had time or words to explain.

In response, he simply scooped her up off the grate in one arm and leapt along the walkway. Giggling in spite of herself, Jupiter wrapped one arm around his neck and clutched her newly acquired weapon in the other as they went.

**We must begone.** His voice was amazingly calm in her head, despite the heaving of his breath in his lungs.  **There is a Requisitions Specialist among them.**

“Yeah, I know.” The worst of the bunch, she thought. Finally a chance to at least try and move towards her objective, and everybody and their mother was here to watch. Then again, maybe it didn’t matter, as long as he was dead.

**Do you have a mission to complete before we depart?** She glanced up at his face, nervous all of a sudden. There had never been a lie between them, she’d always just told SB when the answer to his question was classified. But this time, she wanted his help more than anything in the world. For a moment, she strained between the two as her father’s adamant words rang through her RAM.

“Don’t worry about me.”

**Friend Jupiter, I always worry about--**

His howl cut off his words, a noise from his actual throat which split her ears. She’d heard the shrill of the blade a nanosecond before it happened. Even as he was struck across the back of his shoulder, SB pushed them up and onto the roof of wherever they were and tumbled, wrapping his arms around her. Hugging her to his chest, he staggered upright, turning around in a crouch. 

There behind them, leaping onto the roof spurred by all his anger, was Kylo Ren.

\-----

They were almost there, Rey thought as she sprinted along a rooftop. Almost--

“Hey!” shouted Poe from the seat of his Y-wing as he sped alongside the crowd of his compatriots that were dashing pell-mell towards the Spectre’s ship, blaster still in his hand. “I got space for everyone who doesn’t fit in that hunk of junk!”

“Shut up, Dameron!” Sera called back. “Go shoot some more Req officers why don’t ya?”

“I already shot plenty!” The pilot’s shit-eating grin was like a light in the desert girl’s heart, and she saw Finn smiling as he huffed along beside her.

“They are sure to be sending more. I believe I saw a Slymicon several buildings back.” RP-M3’s monotone was, for once, without a trace of sarcasm. 

“Really? I didn’t see it!” Poe’s face fell to concern, and he looked all around them. 

“Why didn’t you say something, Arrpee?” Sera glared at the droid. 

“Because it was heading in the other direction from our destination.”

“That might be SB,” Finn reminded the party. “If you see a naked Slymi with a robot leg, don’t you dare shoot him!” 

“A naked Slymi, huh?” Sera was chuckling as she crossed a narrow excuse for a bridge between two building roofs. “I missed that last time!” 

“He’s the reason you got away last time!” Poe shouted. 

“Here!” The pink-haired woman was skidding to a stop beside a ship that looked like it had been sleek, once. Now it was lived-in, still beautiful but less perfect. Hand-repaired panels dotted its underside. “This is it! We can take two.” 

“Rey, you and Luke can--” 

To the party’s sudden and acute horror, an enormous Slymi in a jumpsuit leapt almost out of nowhere onto the rear of Poe’s ship, and its idling engine sputtered and groaned as the extra weight towed it sidelong towards the stream of air traffic. 

“POE!” Rey, Finn, and Sera screamed almost in unison. 

“Fuck. I didn’t see that one,” RP-M3 groaned. They watched the Y-wing careen as Poe tried to shake the creature off, getting farther and farther away. 

“I’m goin’ after him!” The Spectre was opening her ship’s hatch already, heading inside. “Climb the fuck in if you’re coming!” The tall black droid hurried behind her, and Rey stood as though paralyzed. 

Then every single hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked at Luke, whose worn-out eyes were suddenly knife-sharp. He felt it, too. Without another thought, Rey sprinted right back the way they had come. 

“Rey! REY!” Finn bellowed. 

“Dammit,” Luke growled under his breath, and took off after her. “Go with them! Find us!” he barked back at the ex-corporate, whose face was the picture of exasperation. 

“Maker fucking forgive me.” As the  _ Quicksilver’s _ engine roared to life, Finn turned and sprinted inside the hatch just before it could close. 

\-----

**Go. Run.**

At first, she had done exactly what he’d said. She was two roofs over when she heard another bellow of pain that almost hurt, was anathema to her circuitry. She spun around, and saw SB-FU take another searing slice that sent some of the metal part of his arm sputtering. 

“NO!” Somewhere in Jupiter’s mind, she knew that maybe she should keep running. She was alone, Anarawd had gone back for his ship so they could get the hell out of there. But Kylo was her objective, and SB was her only friend. 

The blades on her electrostaff sprang to life as she dashed back towards them, rain pounding on her helmet. It thrummed the way she thought a heart might. She tugged out her blaster just to be thorough.

Kylo had put yet another cut in the enormous Slymi, who spun back around undaunted to bellow at the COO. Jupiter saw, for the first time ever, his jaw split wide open right at what she’d thought was a scar down his chin. Holy shit, she thought as three flaps of spiny teeth brandished their intent towards his opponent. How many  _ tongues _ did she just see?

But Kylo Ren was unmoved, lashing out to strike once more-- until a shot from her blaster caught his arm, and he faltered. 

“SB! GO!” she cried, fury cutting through the vocoder in her helmet. Ren spun, deflected her next shot. The Slymicon hesitated, knowing that he had no recourse without armor of some kind against that unstable plasma blade that had already split his skin like a plum-- but profoundly unwilling to leave his friend behind. 

Before she could order him again, a black-gloved hand shot out towards the Slymi, and he tumbled over the edge of the roof as though he’d been thrown by the air itself. 

“ _ SB! _ ” The scream broke her voice, the terror she’d recognized weeks ago atop a tower of orange stone under the Jakku moon leaping fully into her empathy algorithm. She actually dropped the blaster, bounded up to the huge dark figure in his respirator helmet with the electrostaff spitting in her hands. 

When their blades met, it sent a physical shock through her. But she was strong, and spun around to meet it again without hesitation. He was strong, too, and quick as lightning. The flurry of their weapons flashing against one another could’ve caught the rain itself on fire. 

Luckily, Jupiter learned quickly. Kylo’s movements in a fight she had seen before in VR, but something was halting him this time. He kept pausing slightly, as though he expected something to happen that wasn’t happening, and she surprised him with a stroke more than once. It was like a dance, some part of her thought, the way they parried and thrust and blocked trying always to catch the other off-guard, both too quick not to recover when they did. He was a large man, yet he moved quickly despite his size. She leapt and turned, tried to use her agility to her advantage. Somehow he met her, movements almost like SB’s in their ability to defy the physics of his form. 

Finally they caught one another in a deadlock, two helmets and two blades straining towards a common centerpoint like a star grown too massive to hold itself, waiting on the edge of collapse. She wanted to spear him, flay him, complete her objective in one moment of overwhelming fury. She wanted to save her friend, and wash her hands of the loneliness that pierced her heart, go again to Jedha to hear the voices of the stars in the arms of--

His lunge against her was at just the wrong angle, she knew it even as it happened. But she was too late to stop him spinning her weapon away, cleaving it in two. Even as its pieces clattered out of her hands and to the ground, red plasma caught the surface of her helmet as she ducked--

Her whole body spun onto the ground, the silver thing flying off her head and off the roof to disappear. But she caught herself, hauled up and away from him, sprinted for her blaster that was still on the roof. The rain plastered her hair to her head, ran down into her shirt collar beneath the extremely basic blast-proof chest plate Anarawd had lent her. Thank the Maker Ren didn’t use guns, she thought. The thing was in her hands, and she spun around to aim for his helmet. 

The way he froze when he saw her made no sense, given the data she already had. He should’ve lunged forward, pursued her with all his intent. Instead his blade hung by his side, and he hovered in what her pre-frontal matrix could only conclude was shock. This was enough to cause her to freeze in place, confused. Some part of her mind said  _ shoot! Shoot! _ But she didn’t. She watched him turn his blade off, drop the hilt to the ground. Black gloves reached up to tug his respirator helmet up and off

The face that stared back at her when he looked up sent her whole body into empathic overload, her nanofilaments screaming even as she felt rooted to the spot. Standing there in the rain, wrapped in the regalia of First Order, LLC’s Requisitions Department, bearing the mantle of Kylo Ren… was  _ him. _

\-----

Those eyes, the hazel ones he dreamed of, glared at him while the rain tamped down her mussed up hair. The lips he felt like phantoms on his in quiet moments where his mind wandered were bent into a tense, furious frown. The body he remembered touching, remembered pushing inside of with reverent slowness, remembered so viscerally whenever his empty hands shook (was it biology? the Force? what the fuck  _ was _ it?) was crouched into a low posture ready to shoot him down and run. Kylo’s heart stood still, struck with horror and shock and  _ awe-- _

His helmet hit the rooftop, joining his saber hilt. He was speechless, confounded. She was one of them. His enemy. A spy, a traitor-- but still even in that moment he longed to hear her breathless questions about  _ wonder _ and the spirit, that struck him where others had not. To draw sweet, delicious sighs from her perfect mouth with his touch, relish the ineffable connection he felt when he did. No matter their loyalties, he knew he could do no harm to her. And it split him in two. 

Slowly, she loosened her stance; the snub nose of her blaster strayed towards the rooftop and away from him, shaking. By her face she was as surprised and shaken as he was, caught between these two realities that pushed them together and pulled them apart at the same time and with parallel intensity.

Just as he started to take a step towards her, movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention an instant too late. An enormous figure, another Slymi but this one in First Order attire, leapt across the roof and caught her from the side--

At that same moment, pain ricocheted through his body from the opposite side the Slymi had come from, a pain like nothing he’d ever felt. The shot from an Amban rifle had caught him between his chest and back plates, seared through his torso. Just as he heard her scream, he fell to one knee as the breath was driven from his lungs. Instinctively he wrapped the Force around himself, holding in his guts by its terrible mercy. 

He looked up, and she was gone, vanished over the roof’s edge on biogenetically engineered claws as the thing took her with it. Panic struck him like lightning, and he cried out and reached pitifully towards the place where they'd disappeared, too late for anything. Another shout rang through the air; he watched the Mandalorian from before descend from his sniping-place after her.

And then, a blue lightsaber and a green lightsaber sang, running towards him one roof over. Every atom of his body knew who approached. He found his own hilt on the concrete with his shaking hand, then stood up to face them with his heart, his mind arrested in bewilderment, in fury-- in  _ agony. _


	40. personal log 57

>loading…

>key:

>password accepted

>recorded [date redacted], 57 personal log

>I did not expect this. 

>Then again, I don’t expect I could have. This is not in my programming. Or at least not in my base programming, my initial protocol. It has developed in my adaptive programming nonetheless.

>My systems should be overwhelmed right now. Even with the tricyclic core, this should have drained power too quickly for the self-sustaining processes to keep up. I’ve noticed that when I am too activated, they struggle. Each circumstance is different, so I must trust my systems and watch them closely. I’ve learned to see when I need to withdraw. My first experience with this at the start of phase one left a strong impression.

>I have never been more activated than I was a few hours ago in Jedha. But… this will sound dysfunctional, I know. Inside the ancient city where humans once worshipped, my interactions were different somehow. My power is fully intact when it should be depleted. 

>I am full of… wonder.

>I’m concerned that this extra energy might drive me to distraction, even more than becoming activated already threatens to. I’ve struggled to move into phase two, to gather enough information on my target, obtain more privileged access to FO. Because of him, I fear. Because of that which I can only call magic, his hands make me light up, his body makes my body respond instantly, powerfully. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m terrified of it. I want more of it all the time. 

>Every single moment inside the tower, I wait for him to pass by. I never asked what he does. Does it matter? If I knew, I’d only try harder to find him anyway. 

>Every spare moment my RAM is flickering with memories of the first gala, in the garden-- the gallery-- how he found me there staring at the figure, the sculpture that hurt inexplicably-- almost begged to see me again-- the booth in the hotel bar, shielded from curious eyes, the electric sensation of his hands-- his lips-- his eyes burning when he speaks of the Force-- the stars-- the prayer I found myself gasping in a room full of flowers like tiny lamps as he entered me--

>If I keep seeing him, which I want to with every part of me, I have to be sure I can focus on my goal. Use him to get closer to it, if I have to. Use any tool I can find. Protect this LAN, protect my father. Protect SB, what would I do without SB? Protect everyone.

>I must keep my objective. I must kill Kylo Ren. 

>recording ends


	41. fulcrum

“Lobo!” 

When the door to the lab was locked, the old man was usually deep in the weeds of some project or another. Really, only one project, these days. And when it was locked she usually left him to it. But not today.

“LOBO OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!” She was pounding on it furiously. Her comm gave a chirp.

_ “Leia, you know I’m busy--” _

“I will shoot you myself, Taran Lobo, open the Maker-forsaken door.” 

Apparently her unusual level of insistence left an impression on him, because after a series of noises the door slid open finally. Everything was the same as ever, strewn with the apparatus of whatever fine line there was between genius and madness. Lobo himself was standing on the other side of his work table, his real arms crossed and the cybernetic one on his hips.

“Is something compromised? Because this work is  _ extremely _ delicate--”

“Let me see her.” The woman’s eyes were sharp, but they looked red and shadowed and… tearful? The old man blinked at her.

“See her?”

“Yes, Lobo. Let me see her.”

“She’s not ready to--”

“I know that looking won’t break her so  _ let me see her! _ ” The woman’s fists were balled at her sides, shaking. 

“Leia, take a deep breath, okay? What’s wrong?”

“I swear, Lobo--”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take you to her. But you-- something is wrong.”

“Please.” Now Leia’s eyes were collapsing into pleading, into sadness. Her shoulders, ever bound up in the steel of her strength, sagged. “Let me see her, first.” 

For a moment, Lobo looked at her with the deepest concern he’d felt in a while. Then he turned wordlessly to the side, and walked to where one very large cabinet was in the corner of the room. Turning off his eyescreen, he looked into a retinal scanner and placed his thumb on a print scanner. The door popped open slightly with a hiss of air, and he drew it open to reveal a narrow hallway. His creased brow turned back to the woman he’d known very well for quite some time. 

“This way.” She followed him, more ghostlike than she’d ever been, down to another door. Here Lobo entered a passkey on a touchscreen on the door. 

“Simulacrum,” he said, and the door slid open. The room was shadowy, but a huge LED lamp was like the sun pointed down at a tank of translucent, blueish fluid. Inside the fluid was a body in a dead man’s float, half a dozen tubes protruding from its hairless head to weave their way out of the tank and into one of the many machines that lined the walls.

Leia walked up to it slowly. The top of the transparisteel tank was missing, and there was a cart full of metal bits and silicone bobs to one side of the tank-- the old man had been in the middle of working on it. She drew up close enough to look down at the face. Eyes shut, a delicate aquiline nose, a plush mouth. No brows or lashes, not yet. Her body was petit, streamlined, beautiful. Astonishingly natural.

“Repair’s looking good. You really put that silica to good use,” the woman murmured, and the emotions that lurked under her face were difficult to make sense of. Lobo walked around to the side where his cart was, tapped a couple of buttons on a datapad there. 

“Yes, thank you for getting it. It’s really quality stuff.” He eyed her closely now. “You gonna tell me what’s up?” At first, Leia was silent, staring into the tank. She sighed like her heart was made of lead.

“I told Han about the project.” 

“You…” He blinked at her, eyebrows shooting up. “Why?”

“I think he wanted to sneak out before I found him like usual, but I always know when he’s close. Old chiphead.” She almost laughed. 

“So he asked you about it?”

“Yep.”

“And you told him the truth?”

“I couldn't lie to him, Lobo.” Finally her eyes found his, and he saw the years of grief in them. “Not about this.”

“What’d he say?” asked the old man quietly, glancing down into the tank. 

“Exactly what we both expected.” 

“Yeah.” He rubbed his forehead, then his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose. This was not a time to be angry, but part of him was anyway. He knew the smuggler as well as he knew the smuggler’s wife, after all these years. He had warned her. “What’d he do?”

“We fought, which I mean, I knew that would happen. He ran off, which I also knew would happen. But I hoped Han was just gonna do his thing. Same thing he always does.” Her eyelashes fluttered, and finally a tear left its trail down her cheek. “I shoulda known better.”

“Leia,” Lobo sighed, shaking his head. “I--”

“He’s dead.” 

Now wide eyes shot up to stare at her, shock striking him through the heart.

“Dead?”

“He went to Ben.” Another tear, and her lip trembled. “I know he did. I know he went to try and bring our son back to us and--” But her breath turned solid in her throat and she stopped for a moment, struck with merciless certainty. 

“Did he tell you that was his plan?” Lobo asked, unwilling and unable to believe.

“It wasn’t a plan, he did it on impulse like everything else.”

“And you really think Kylo killed him?” His face was a mask of disbelief.

“I know he did it. I  _ know, _ Lobo.” 

“How--”

“You know exactly how.” Her eyes glinted, hardened with the burden of the Force. Which she could not control, could not always understand. But when it brought its brutal truths to her, she knew better than to question it. Her old friend shook his head, put his face in his hands. His breath came in a slow rattle, his heart was pounding up against the rigid barrier of his breastbone. 

“Leia, I--”

“I wish I’d told him when we started. I wish we’d been fighting about it from the beginning. But it doesn’t fucking matter. It’s too late now.” She was staring at the tank again, at closed eyes. The silicone thing looked so real, even without hair, that it actually seemed peaceful. Not dead, or hollow like a droid’s shell. Some part of her knew that it was a wonder of this pitiful, broken world. That even if it never really learned to be like a human, just the feat of its appearance should have made Lobo rich. 

But instead he was twelve stories underground, a dirty secret. And a deadly one, now doubly so. 

“Fuck.” The old man’s hands dropped, his head hanging between his shoulders. “Should… should I stop…?”

“No.” The hardness in her face was back. “No, this is all the more reason to continue.”

“Just because it’s my life’s work--”

“I mean it, Lobo. I didn’t commit to this because I wanted to in the first place. It has to be done. Nothing else has worked, and nothing else will.”

“Alright,” he sighed. “I’ll carry on. She’s about to get important upgrades, anyway, after what happened at the lab.” He looked back at Leia now, and there was a strange look on her face as she stared down into the plastic ooze. There was respect there, but there was also something else. Something akin to hatred.

“She’s incredible, Taran. I hope you know that.” 

“I do, actually. I know she’s the only thing like her that’s ever existed, or maybe ever will. But thanks for saying it, anyway.” His casual, deeply factual awareness of his own skill was oddly grounding in that moment. She knew he was aware of deeper things, too-- he wasn’t one of those chipheads who couldn’t understand other people. 

“I’ll see you later.” A shroud fell over her; Leia gave him a nod and turned to leave back down the hall she’d arrived through. And Lobo knew better than to try to force her to speak any more, of course. He looked down at the body in the tank, feeling for the first time the dark heart that was the fulcrum of his most beloved work, the child he had built with his own two hands.

Suddenly his oculus lit up with a notification that was marked ‘urgent.’ Blinking as though to return himself to reality, he tapped the button on the side of his eyescreen. 

“Anarawd? Is that you?”

“Lobo, I’m coming to the lab. I need your help. Like,  _ right now. _ ”


	42. audio file - 9q3va1o.mp3

>//server/LAN/system/library/audio/comm-net/35aby/9q3va1o.mp3

>key:

>password accepted

>this is a non-native file. are you sure you want to proceed? 

>confirmed

>recording begins

>Rey? Are you there? Come in, please. Please be okay, Rey, please--

_ >Finn! What happened to Poe? Is he alright? _

>He’s fine, just a little beat up. The Y-wing is toast, though.

_ >It’s about time he got a new ride anyway. Are you okay?  _

>Yeah, Sera and Arrpee got me and Poe away safe. You rerouted, right?

_ >Of course. Luke and I are over in-- _

>Don’t tell me, chiphead! Our encryption’s probably fucked.

_ >Right, sorry. Anyway we’re alright. _

>What happened with you? By the time we got to Poe--

_ >I fought him again. _

>Kylo?

_ >Yeah. He got away, though. _

>Shit. 

_ >I know, not ideal. He took a rifle shot to the gut, though. It’s amazing he’s still alive. I got him a couple of times, and it looks like SB landed a strike or two before he fell-- _

>Fell? Where?

_ >Over the roof.  _

>WHAT? Is he okay?

_ >I don’t know. He’s hard to kill, so I hope he’s alright. The Mando, though, he’s the one who got Kylo with the rifle. But he didn’t take another shot, because someone else got attacked by another Slymi-- do you know who that was? He took off after her when the Slymi jumped her and knocked them both off the roof, too.  _

>Maker, it was raining Slymis. Fuck. No, I have no idea, I don’t think I even saw her. Poe says she was running with the Mando that day, though, and had a helmet on. So maybe she’s one of them too. Shit, I hope SB’s okay.

_ >I didn’t think Mandos were allies to the LAN? _

>They’re not. They’re not allies to anyone. Which makes me wonder what the hell those two were doing there. 

_ >Yeah, me too. Anyway we’re not going back for a while. I wish you were here. _

>I know. We wish we were with you, too, love.

_ >I got a bad feeling about this, Finn. _

>About what?

_ >I keep thinking that Han… nevermind. He wasn’t even there. But I got this bad feeling about it all. About Kylo. And that girl, the one with the Mando? It’s weird that none of us know who she is. _

>Yeah, it is weird. We’ll have to regroup and talk to someone about what happened. Sera says hi, by the way. 

_ >Oh… um, hi Sera. Tell her I said thanks for saving our asses. And that I like her new hair. _

>You want me to tell her you like her hair?

_ >No, nevermind. Forget that part. Just thank her for me. _

>Oookay, little mouse…

_ >What? Listen, I gotta go. I love you and Poe so much. Please be safe and let me know when I can see you again. _

>I will. I love you, and of course so does Poe. He’s out right now or he’d be talking to you too. We can’t risk another holomessage until we’re outta here, but I’ll make contact. 

_ >Alright. _

>end recording

>save to ROM?

>file saved


	43. hale

For the first time since he had held her to him, lolling like a ragdoll and hemorrhaging the sticky bluish liquid that moved through her body like blood; since he’d gutted another Slymicon and half a dozen officers in his fear and rage and urgency to get her home, get her fixed; since she’d vanished into the passages he was too large to follow her through-- for the first time since the cold possibility of losing her had laid its iron grip on his heart, SB-FU saw Jupiter walking slowly out into the hangar bay in the middle of the night. From up in his loft he had heard one of the doors slide open. There she was, no longer almost in half with hazy eyes blinking up at him, hand twisted in an unnatural angle weakly trying to touch his face. She was whole, in clean white linens, not even scarred. Perfectly repaired. 

**Friend Jupiter.** Even from the height he was at, she could hear his strange mouthless speech. She spun, breathless--

“SB!” Before she could demand he get down from up there, he had already begun to descend a couple of platform grates to the top of a freight container, and then to the floor where she stood. She flung herself into the giant’s embrace as he knelt to accept her. 

**I’m so happy to see you hale.** Around his neck and over his shoulders, her hug tightened.

“You’re alive,” she murmured against his pale, warm skin, taking in a huge shaky breath of his strange and particular scent. “You  _ saved _ me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

**Then do not try. There’s no need.** Delicately, he increased the strength of his hug. She was not as frail as a human, but still. 

“I’m sorry, I compromised everything, I know I did--”

**Hush.** In her head, his voice was low and sweet and soothing.  **You are becoming a person, remember? It is no easy feat. Surprises are inevitable.**

“But they hurt you.” The Slymi felt the sensation of tears wetting his neck where her head was nestled. “And the others…” But he had shifted, and one massive hand was touching her chin, lifting it up to look at him. 

**Do not cry, friend Jupiter. Hurt is not yours to protect us from, and all have healed.** A huge thumb was swiping the tears from her cheeks.  **To lose you, the hurt would be much worse than a simple wound.**

“SB…” As her eyelids fluttered shut, she felt a strange twist inside her innards; she’d never experienced something quite like tenderness before. Her hands trembled against his chest.

**Do you want to come up? You’ve been in repairs for almost three weeks. I’ve missed our talks.** Now he was smiling softly, and he turned his shoulder the way he always did. Wordlessly, she climbed up onto his back, wrapping her legs around his torso. One hand held her there gently as he leapt, the other steadying his jumps along the wall. She buried her face in the back of his neck while she had a moment to, and felt for the first time the warm exhaustion of relief, the bright glow of fondness-- was that the word?

When they reached the platform, SB-FU knelt again to let her slip off him. As usual, the first thing he did was plug in the star-lights. She smiled as their glow filled the air.

“SB?” The enormous, gentle creature was tucking himself up in the corner of the wall on his bed, beckoning her to follow. Jupiter slid into his lap, leaned her head on his chest as his arm came loosely around her in a familiar jigsaw puzzle their bodies had figured out of their own accord. “What happened after you fell?”

**Luckily, the walking grates broke my fall. So when I recovered, I began making my way back up. Then I… saw you fall, too, gravely wounded by your attacker.** The low hum of a quiet growl rumbled in his throat as his words came through her mind.  **I rushed down to where you landed. He survived the fall, so I made certain he did not survive the mistake of harming you.**

“I can almost remember being on the ground, or was it another roof?”

**It was a low roof. There were other officers there. They did not survive, either. Then, I carried you.** His face turned, bent down towards her.  **You tried to speak. I begged you not to, but you do not listen very well.**

“I’m stubborn, okay?” she chuckled. 

**As I am well aware.** He smiled.  **The Requisitions Specialist you fought, I believe Friend Rey and Friend Luke fought him after that. I don’t know if he survived or not.**

Now her circuits jumped to life, anxious and uncertain, unable to choose between horror and relief at the idea of him being dead. She wanted to tell SB everything; the strain of silence and the fear of speaking up pulled her throat tight.

“I see.” Jupiter pushed the flood of emotions that threatened to flood her empathy algorithm away. There was no place more sacred than her friend’s arms, she thought, not after what she’d learned about Kylo Ren that night. How much it hurt and overwhelmed her. This was no place to think about it. Whatever it meant, she would find out soon enough. She tucked her head even closer against the Slymi’s form.

**The others all scattered, trying to protect the base from trackers. Many of them have not yet returned. I brought you back here so that Lobo might save you. I’ve been here since, awaiting your recovery.** That struck her, like there really was a heart in her chest, a weight. She leaned back to look up at him, and that feeling that their eyes were meeting despite his lack of them came over her.

“Thank you, SB. I’d be scrap plastic without you.” To the creature’s surprise, one of her hands (so tiny, to him) came up and pulled his face towards her so she could kiss his cheek ever so briefly. Then it fell, and she had the courtesy to lay her head back against his shoulder and look away before she saw the grayish-green blush come over him. 

**This is what friends are for, I’m told.** She laughed. 

“Yeah. I’m glad you have more than just one.”

**I’m sorry you cannot make more friends yet. But it will happen soon.** She felt his chin rest on the top of her head-- and that reminded her very suddenly of something else.

“Your jaw! I saw-- what  _ was _ that?” she asked, excited enough to pull away from his warmth and scrutinize the indented line on his lower lip and chin. “I didn’t know Slymis could do that!” 

**You didn’t know that I have a bifurcated jaw?** He was grinning, and ever so slightly he tugged his jaw bones apart. She was staring at the barely-visible teeth shadowed just inside, fascinated. 

“No, I really didn’t.”

**Well, now you are aware.**

“How many  _ tongues _ do Slymis have?” One brow was raised at him as his chin slid back together, his lips returning to a more human-like appearance. 

**I do not know about others of my kind. But I have four.** Her jaw fell open. 

“Four? That’s so many! What do you do with  _ four _ tongues?”

**I… taste things?** He canted his head, confused.  **Is that not what most tongues are for? Admittedly I can also twist the necks or limbs of certain things I bite with them.** Now there was a mischievous little grin on his face. Jupiter just blinked for a moment, then laughed.

“I knew there had to be a reason. That’s terrifying. And kinda impressive, actually,” she said, musing. “Helpful for a hunter.” 

**I have begun to think not all Slymicons are the same, based on the ones I’ve met in combat. Some cannot speak the way I do, or at all. Some may extend their jaw but not bifurcate it. There must be genetic variations in the process of our growth.**

“Huh. That would make sense, actually.” She was running a finger over her bottom lip as she pondered, something she did quite often in his company. “Do some of you have eyes?”

**I do not know. But I can see you, friend Jupiter.** Her face turned back towards his with half a smile.

“I know you can. I just don’t know how, exactly.”

**I have light perceptors on either side of my head, where I hear from.**

“So you see light and shadow?” 

**Yes, and over time I compile more sensory input to obtain an even clearer image of a subject. Many humans and other creatures have an energetic signature that I recognize. One all their own. I often detect them from some distance, that way. So my sight is not simply light and shadow.**

“Wow,” she murmured, a hand straying up to his face again to touch it softly, absently. “I wonder what I look like to you?” 

**You are small, and very bright. Your hair is short, and a bit of a mess.** Now he ruffled said hair with his fingers, and she giggled.  **Your voice is lovely, with a strange roughness to it. You have an unusual, clean smell that is not like other plastics. I can smell it beneath the human odor your skin simulates. Your movements are quite elegant. I’m afraid I can’t tell the color of your eyes, or many colors at all. But I can see the star-lights reflected in them, which is part of why I turn them on.** His smile was gentle, timid almost. Warmth rose to her cheeks, a sudden urge to laugh to her throat. She pushed that away, though, because it seemed out of place.  **But I couldn’t bring myself to turn them on these past three weeks.** When his lips fell slightly, she felt her empathy algorithms jump. 

“I’m okay now. Thanks to you and Lobo.” She wanted to be reassuring, but her eyes wanted to weep again. Not out of sadness or fear, this time. 

**I’m glad. Who else would I talk to about feelings, if you were gone?** Looking at him, she felt almost sure that if he’d had proper eyes he’d be crying a little, too. For once, she didn’t feel the need to try to talk about her emotion at that moment. They were both feeling it, the massive relief of gratitude and lingering sting of nearly losing someone you care for. Before she had any say in the matter, a tear ran down her cheek. One large thumb came up to swipe it away, like it always did. 

Jupiter leaned forward once more, pressing her cheek into SB’s collar bone. His arms came around her, chin resting on top of her head once more. All the weight of what she had dealt with-- whatever she was about to deal with-- hung in her chest, in her stomach. But his sweetness, his genuine affection washed over her gently as they sat in the quiet together.


End file.
